multiple TOCs question

[Chris_Bozzelli@adobeforums.com]

Ok, here's what I would like to do (in ID2, win XP pro):

I have a book with 6 documents in it. I need to set up the TOCs so that each document has it's own TOC, on the left hand side of the left page of each spread, with the other five documents listed above or below, with something similar happening for the pages within that document. The text for the documents and spreads you aren't looking at would be grey, and the document and spread you are looking at would be black - so if you're on the 3rd spread in document 4 you would see:

Document 1
Document 2
Document 3
Document 4 (in black)
spread 1
spread 2
spread 3 (in black)
spread 4
Document 5
Document 6

With the idea being that the reader knows exactly where they are in the book at all times (it's essentially technical drawings for a single project). There is also a need for a "Master" TOC at the begining of the book, which lists all spreads in all documents with page numbers (essentially every other page #).

The kicker is, I would like to be able to update this all as spreads are added or deleted, either automatically or by regenerating the vaious TOCs (which is why I'd like to avoid just typing it and updating by hand)

before this I knew very little of the TOC feature beyond its' basic functions...I've been futzing around for a couple days off and on, and I can't seem to get it.

How should I go about it? or should I just give up an type it?

~Dubbed

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

I've never heard of this. It sounds like you came up with a new idea that may not be possible.
It would be interesting to see if someone else could come up with a solution to this.

or should I just give up an type it?




If you are planning to make PDF files of these publications, you cannot expect to be able to just type the TOC by hand and use the TOC as bookmarks or hyperlinks.

I would like to be able to update this all as spreads are added or deleted




This will have to all be done manually if you choose to type it in by hand.

[Chris_Bozzelli@adobeforums.com]

Pdf bookmarks & hyperlinks aren't necessary...but it would be a plus. the main reason for trying to use the TOC feature is that this set will be updated and edited often for next year or so, and simply regenerating the various TOCs would save us alot of busywork - though I've put a good number of hours into this already - maybe I should just cut the idea loose for now.

the idea is nothing new, it's essentially ripped off from basic web design.

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

What happens if you just try it? Can't you have a ToC in every document of a book? Seems like you should be able to.

Dave

[Chris_Bozzelli@adobeforums.com]

after some more futzing, and screwing up and fixing my Paragraph styles and character styles a couple hundred times, I'm close to having it. There's just one problem

it's the part about having the title of the spread you're looking at be in bold (essentially a different character style). I can set the character style for the whole list of spreads within a given document, but not for a single entry in that list. I can change it manually after creating the TOC, but that disappears as soon as the TOC is updated. kinda defeats the intention not to have to update by hand. The only other thing I can think of is to create a paragraph style for each spread within the document, and apply the bold character style to the one you're looking at, and leave the rest at default grey. Again, not a good option...it's essentially a long, drawn out way of doing it all by hand. (with the exception of the Main TOC at the front of the book. - that one is working fine beacause it doesn't have this single bold line requirement.)

I need a way to "lock" exterior adjustments to the TOC...

can anyone think of anything else to try?

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

Chris,

Yes, those were the things I was worried about.

You might be able to achieve the effect you need with carefully constructed nested styles, although that would involve some ingenuity and might not be possible.

The only other thing I can think of is a script, but you'd have to run it every time you did a TOC -- just to add insult to injury, the ability to create a TOC by script is broken, so you couldn't just hand the whole thing off to a script (unless the script did the whole job, including creating the TOC "the hard way").

Dave