TOC Blues
December 1, 2009 2:06 PM Subscribe
How can i implement a good TOC for my dissertation?
I'm looking for a functional (and ideally aesthetic) table of contents ... I'm using the one in Word07 now, but it only goes three titles deep (I suppose this can probably be changed).
Are there better options, or is it best to stick with Word07?
Thanks.
I'm looking for a functional (and ideally aesthetic) table of contents ... I'm using the one in Word07 now, but it only goes three titles deep (I suppose this can probably be changed).
Are there better options, or is it best to stick with Word07?
Thanks.
Response by poster: Well, thanks for the tip about the field codes -- also convenience is key when dealing with all these chapters and sub-chapters and sub-sub-chapters so, yeah, thanks for the direction.
posted by mateuslee at 2:24 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by mateuslee at 2:24 PM on December 1, 2009
Best answer: You can control all kinds of things about your TOC in word, how many fields deep, how it's formatted, what gets included. Mine is five and a half levels deep with a gap at the start of each chapter, right justified numbers with leading dots, different font size and weight for different headings, whatever else I think looks good and pretty much all customised rather then from one of there templates. You can modify the TOC styles either in the style formatter or in the TOC insert box, and also make sure you're really rigorous with how you apply heading styles throughout the actual document (since that's where the info comes from).
If you want to make if look exactly how you like I'd suggest spending some time with the help section for TOC open and click every button, change every setting, see what it all does. On a backup version of your file of course. This is the best way to figure out what Word can do I think, just try it and see.
Alternatively, if you want to just change the number of levels, insert a new TOC and in the options box look down, under general there is a setting "Show levels". Change that to 4 and click OK. Then you'll get your TOC with four levels.
posted by shelleycat at 2:39 PM on December 1, 2009
If you want to make if look exactly how you like I'd suggest spending some time with the help section for TOC open and click every button, change every setting, see what it all does. On a backup version of your file of course. This is the best way to figure out what Word can do I think, just try it and see.
Alternatively, if you want to just change the number of levels, insert a new TOC and in the options box look down, under general there is a setting "Show levels". Change that to 4 and click OK. Then you'll get your TOC with four levels.
posted by shelleycat at 2:39 PM on December 1, 2009
Also, I've never toggled the field codes (for anything). Why bother when the option is right there in the dialogue box when you're making the thing in the first place?
posted by shelleycat at 2:40 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by shelleycat at 2:40 PM on December 1, 2009
This sort of stuff is completely dead easy in TeX.
Now, converting your dissertation to LaTeX.. that's rather far from easy. But here is the entire set of stuff I did to generate the table of contents for my dissertation:
I typed in* "\tableofcontents". Then LaTeX generated the TOC all by itself from my chapter, section, and subsection headings. Similarly, I made my list of figures by typing in "\listoffigures" and my list of tables by typing in "\listoftables."
*Actually I didn't even do that; it was already in the sample .tex file that went with my university's dissertation class file.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:44 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]
Now, converting your dissertation to LaTeX.. that's rather far from easy. But here is the entire set of stuff I did to generate the table of contents for my dissertation:
I typed in* "\tableofcontents". Then LaTeX generated the TOC all by itself from my chapter, section, and subsection headings. Similarly, I made my list of figures by typing in "\listoffigures" and my list of tables by typing in "\listoftables."
*Actually I didn't even do that; it was already in the sample .tex file that went with my university's dissertation class file.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:44 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]
Now, converting your dissertation to LaTeX.. that's rather far from easy.
I used the trial version of GrindEQ to do this, and it was fairly easy. If you want to use it more than 10 times, it costs €49.
posted by grouse at 3:00 PM on December 1, 2009
I used the trial version of GrindEQ to do this, and it was fairly easy. If you want to use it more than 10 times, it costs €49.
posted by grouse at 3:00 PM on December 1, 2009
I have used LaTeX2RTF to convert LaTeX to RTF (opensource), and I see there is a parallel RTF2LaTeX. If you like this kind of geekery, it produces nice documents, but it depends how far along you are, and if your adviser is ok with it. (I use LaTeX2RTF to give a word doc to mine). I'm new to LaTeX but like it a lot.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 4:00 PM on December 1, 2009
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 4:00 PM on December 1, 2009
This sort of stuff is completely dead easy in TeX.
Putting a TOC into Word is just as easy and works every bit as well. You click the right section on the ribbon, click the option to insert a TOC then OK. It makes everything automagically from the headings, just like LaTeX. Of course you have to put more effort in if you want to change the formatting (although it's again very easy) but the same goes for LaTeX. Either you accept the default formatting or you change it to how you want, LaTeX isn't a mind reader (and there are template files for Word just as there are for LaTeX so that's not a choosing point either).
Word is frustrating in many other ways but this one thing is no reason to change, particularly since the OP can get it how he wants in Word with only an extra five second's work. Changing to LaTeX and learning a new system takes more than five seconds.
posted by shelleycat at 4:25 PM on December 1, 2009
Putting a TOC into Word is just as easy and works every bit as well. You click the right section on the ribbon, click the option to insert a TOC then OK. It makes everything automagically from the headings, just like LaTeX. Of course you have to put more effort in if you want to change the formatting (although it's again very easy) but the same goes for LaTeX. Either you accept the default formatting or you change it to how you want, LaTeX isn't a mind reader (and there are template files for Word just as there are for LaTeX so that's not a choosing point either).
Word is frustrating in many other ways but this one thing is no reason to change, particularly since the OP can get it how he wants in Word with only an extra five second's work. Changing to LaTeX and learning a new system takes more than five seconds.
posted by shelleycat at 4:25 PM on December 1, 2009
Word is frustrating in many other ways but this one thing is no reason to change, particularly since the OP can get it how he wants in Word with only an extra five second's work. Changing to LaTeX and learning a new system takes more than five seconds.
I'm a huge fan of LaTeX for just about every sort of lengthy document preparation. The learning curve is steep, but never having to deal with lost footnotes, bad TOCs, indices, etc is a real time saver. For well over fifteen years I've used it for everything that goes beyond a plain-text email and recommend it to everyone involved in writing a thesis, manuscript, long form book or anything with cross references and a bibliography.
Unfortunately very few folks seem interested in it these days until Word eats their PhD once again. And that is the worst time to try to learn it.
posted by autopilot at 4:28 PM on December 1, 2009
I'm a huge fan of LaTeX for just about every sort of lengthy document preparation. The learning curve is steep, but never having to deal with lost footnotes, bad TOCs, indices, etc is a real time saver. For well over fifteen years I've used it for everything that goes beyond a plain-text email and recommend it to everyone involved in writing a thesis, manuscript, long form book or anything with cross references and a bibliography.
Unfortunately very few folks seem interested in it these days until Word eats their PhD once again. And that is the worst time to try to learn it.
posted by autopilot at 4:28 PM on December 1, 2009
Putting a TOC into Word is just as easy and works every bit as well. You click the right section on the ribbon, click the option to insert a TOC then OK. It makes everything automagically from the headings, just like LaTeX.
I just tried it on a few papers with coauthors who don't know TeX and it worked just fine on one, generated six pages of mishmashed text on another and thoughtfully put our names as TOC entries, and on the third it couldn't find any headings to put in the TOC.
Which just means, I suspect, that for this to work reliably you have to actually buckle down and use the sectioning/formatting tools built into Word (ie, using the "heading 1" things) instead of just changing font sizes and bolding as the bulk of Word users seem to do. The major benefit of LaTeX here is only that it makes trying to do things with physical markup like that vastly harder than doing them with logical markup. But if you really wanted to, you could create a new section with \begin{large}\textbf{Section name}\end{large} and some formatting commands to flush the text full left instead of \section{Section name}.
Word is frustrating in many other ways but this one thing is no reason to change, particularly since the OP can get it how he wants in Word with only an extra five second's work.
I don't disagree, and offered my comment for the benefit of others who might eventually end up in this thread because they're having problems getting Word to work.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:47 PM on December 1, 2009
I just tried it on a few papers with coauthors who don't know TeX and it worked just fine on one, generated six pages of mishmashed text on another and thoughtfully put our names as TOC entries, and on the third it couldn't find any headings to put in the TOC.
Which just means, I suspect, that for this to work reliably you have to actually buckle down and use the sectioning/formatting tools built into Word (ie, using the "heading 1" things) instead of just changing font sizes and bolding as the bulk of Word users seem to do. The major benefit of LaTeX here is only that it makes trying to do things with physical markup like that vastly harder than doing them with logical markup. But if you really wanted to, you could create a new section with \begin{large}\textbf{Section name}\end{large} and some formatting commands to flush the text full left instead of \section{Section name}.
Word is frustrating in many other ways but this one thing is no reason to change, particularly since the OP can get it how he wants in Word with only an extra five second's work.
I don't disagree, and offered my comment for the benefit of others who might eventually end up in this thread because they're having problems getting Word to work.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:47 PM on December 1, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
The trick to getting 4 titles deep was to create the TOC, right click on it and select "toggle field codes", this returns {TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u}, change "1-3" to "1-4" and you get your 4th point inset. Right click, toggle field codes again, maybe update the table, and you should be all set.
There might be more aesthetic ways of doing it, but I find this the most convenient by a large margin and I'm an engineer.
posted by pseudonick at 2:21 PM on December 1, 2009