The Table of Contents Macro has a new look!

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community,

My name is Tiffany Chung, and I’m a Product Manager on the Confluence Cloud team.

The Table of Contents macro is a highly used feature that creates a table of contents for a page based on its headings. This helps readers find their way around lengthy pages, summarizing the content structure and providing links to headings. 

Previously, the right rail of the Table of Contents macro was cluttered and heavy-handed. It showcased all possible fields which made it difficult to easily navigate and configure your table of contents. Moreover, some fields allowed users to enter any value when there were limited valid values. For ex. you could specify any value for the heading levels when only inputs 1-7 were valid.

The new and improved Table of Contents macro enables you to customize your table of contents through a basic and advanced tab. The basic tab allows you to quickly and simply configure the look of your table of contents through dropdowns and checkboxes, while the advanced tab allows you to further customize your table of contents with more technical and less commonly used fields, such as headings include and exclude.

Today:

 

In the basic tab, you can quickly configure your list style, bullet or separator type, heading levels and whether to include section numbering.

For more granular customization of your ToC, you can click into the advanced tab and set your heading indent and ToC style with a CSS class name, include or exclude certain headings and whether to include your ToC in exported PDFs.

How to use the Table of Contents macro:

1. Insert a Table of Contents macro by selecting it from the toolbar or typing “/tableofcontents” in the body of your page.

2. To configure, select the pencil icon in the toolbar and configure using either the basic and/or advanced tabs. Any changes made are autosaved.

3. Publish your page to see your table of contents.

For more information about the Table of Contents macro or fields, visit the documentation page.

Feedback or Questions

Don’t forget to let us know any feedback or questions you have in the comments. We’d love to hear your suggestions on how we can make this experience even better for you! If you don't see the experience today, you'll see it coming to you instance very soon.

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

About to use that advanced tab every day. Thanks for the update, @Tiffany Chung !

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Brilliant! 🥳 I think ToC is the macro I'm using the most, almost on every page I publish. It will be interesting to see the new possibilities with this update. Thanks!

[Matt Reiner _K15t_]

Well this is nice! Great work @Tiffany Chung and team!

[Andy Gladstone]

This is a great improvement to the ToC macro. Thanks for this post @Tiffany Chung

I’d like to see an option for a floating ToC that will stay on the page as you scroll. The ToC is a tool that is not only necessary when at the top of the page, but while navigating it - especially pages that are so large or long that require multiple headings and sub-headings. Scrolling all the way back to the top in order to use the hyperlinks in the ToC is not the best experience it can be. 

[George Kopsachilis]

Great to hear that the Table of Contents macro has been improved to provide a better user experience. The basic and advanced tabs sound like a useful addition for customizing the look of the table of contents. Can't wait to give it a try!

[Barbara Szczesniak]

I appreciate this update to the macro. However, the documentation page you link to in your article (For more information about the Table of Contents macro or fields, visit the documentation page.) has not been updated to reflect the new tabs and parameters.

Unfortunately, I included 2 TOC macros on my template (one for headings on page, one for procedures on page) and have made all my pages already. I am now adding the content on those pages, so I will see whether it makes sense to create new TOCs with the new macro and delete my old ones.

When is this update available? I just tried it on the page I'm currently writing, and I still get the old macro.

[Tiffany Chung]

Hi @Barbara Szczesniak , the documentation page will be updated soon, when the feature rolls out to 50% of our users. The new macro look will also apply to all previously inserted ToC macros.

If you don't see the new experience yet, it will be coming to you very soon! Thank you for your patience!

[Randy O_Neal]

I use this heavily... and thankful for the modifications.  Good change!

[Amanda Barber]

Great improvement! I'll second @Andy Gladstoneidea about a floating (or potentially sidebar?) ToC!

[Matthew McGarity]

🙌🏻

[Bert Roos]

How do we use the CSS class name option? It seems like a reasonably simple way to implement the much-desired floating capability, provided we can define the CSS class somehow.

[Bert Roos]

@Tiffany Chung Would you be able to answer the above question?

[Tonie Borchardt]

I'm looking for very basic, typical parts of any knowledge base tool and I can't seem to find them in Confluence.  Which action allows you to show a TOC with the links and titles of nested articles that are on pages underneath the page you are on in the page hierarchy.

I see that the TOC shows headers from the same page you are on, but I am trying to find the functions that show nested pages.  Typically, KB has one for ALL pages nested lower and one for only pages nested directly under the section.  I need both to set up my KB.  TIA!

[Amanda Barber]

@Tonie Borchardt - I use the Child Pages macro for that. Learn more here: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/insert-the-child-pages-macro/