Can Scrivener generate table of contents?

December 1, 2011 3:11 PM

Question for Scrivener users: Is there an easy way to generate a table of contents and/or an index/appendix? It seems like there should be a way to do this, but I haven't found anything. Thanks!
posted by letstrythis to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

As far as I can tell, no. That's one of the reasons why the creators refer to it as a "writing program," and distinguish it from "word processors." You really have to export into something like Word or Pages (or any other word processor) for some final touch-ups, like tables of contents and indexes, formatting of tables, etc.

But I'm a relatively new (though obsessed) Scrivener user, so perhaps there's some secret I haven't yet discovered.
posted by Superplin at 3:25 PM on December 1, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks Superplin. I'm a big fan of Scrivener as well, and new to it. Any power users out there? Maybe I can figure something out in Open Office. I don't want to buy more software for the use of only a couple of features.
posted by letstrythis at 3:32 PM on December 1, 2011

From the scrivener forums:

For an actual table of contents you'll probably want to use your word processor. There is a simple ToC production tool which is described in Ch. 22 (pg. 281) of the User Manual PDF (Help menu). It will create dynamically numbered ToC for word processors that fully support the RTF specification; but the entries themselves are static and will not change if you adjust your Binder.
posted by webhund at 5:10 PM on December 1, 2011

Yeah I used it to wrote my book but then exported to Word [though I'm sure Open Office will work] and did some formatting--especially headings in proper sizes and etc--and then made the ToC that way. Same thing with indexing. After asking on AskMe, I decided to go with a professional indexer and was glad I did, but Word [and maybe Open Office] will make a decent index.
posted by jessamyn at 6:36 PM on December 1, 2011

I was looking for a similar question, till i found an old post here mentioning a program called PDF Index Generator.

I decided to try it out ... I did some effort but it did decent work. It worked fine on my Mac.
posted by lara_salamone at 2:53 AM on December 24, 2011 [1 favorite]