Adobe FrameMaker 9: Adding Tabs to a Table of Contents

by Barbara Binder

 

"Discoverable." That's a new Adobe buzzword for features that users can discover on their own. I'd say that adding a tab character between the entries and page numbers in a table of contents does not fall into that category. One of my most memorable consulting moments was watching a student update her FrameMaker book and TOC and then manually add all the tabs after FrameMaker stripped them out. I can only imagine what she was thinking with each tap of the Tab key: "I hate FrameMaker, I hate FrameMaker."

Don't hate FrameMaker! It's such a simple fix:

1. Open your Table of Contents file.
   
   
2. Choose View > Text Symbols to turn on the non-printing characters (if they aren't on already).
   
   
3. Choose View > Reference Pages.
   
   
4. Tap PgDn on your keyboard until you reach the TOC Reference Page, which looks something like this:
   
   
   
   
5. Take a close look at the text. What do you see between each <$paratext> and <$pagenum> building block? It's a space!
   
   
6. Delete the space after each <$paratext> and replace it with a tab character. In this image below, I've already set a right-aligned tab stop with leader dots, so adding the tabs scoots them over immediately. You will have to add the tab stop before your page numbers move to the right:
   
   
   
   
7. Choose View > Body Pages.
   
   Reference Page changes to generated documents don't take effect until you update your book. Once updated, you'll be happy to discover that you will never need to add those tabs manually again.
   
   Say it with me: "I love FrameMaker, I love FrameMaker!"

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If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker class. Hope to "see" you there.

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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

Comments

[Fred Brown]

Barbara,

Many thanks for the tip. You specified FrameMaker 9. What if my company will not upgrade from FrameMaker 8? Does this method still work? Thanks.

[Barb Binder]

You bet! It will work in any version of FrameMaker. Have you tried it yet? Let me know when you start chanting, "I love Framemaker!". :)

[Jayne Parris]

Hi, my tabs are showing in the reference pages of the TOC i am generating, but they are not showing in the generated table. Also the character format is not the same as the file I imprted them from. can you help