Customizing tables of contents

The way in which your table of contents looks and behaves in the viewer is controlled by the properties assigned to it. You can customize it by changing TOC properties. For example, you can select a custom font for displaying book and page titles, synchronize books and pages with topic content, and use raised or sunken edges so the TOC pane has a three-dimensional look.

To customize the table of contents:

  1. From the File menu, select Project Settings.

  2. Click the TOC Styles tab.

  3. Select the available styles options.

  1. Select the available font options.

  1. If you want to display the topic in a custom window rather than in the left-hand pane, select the window name from Default Window. (You need to design a custom window for this purpose.)

  2. If you want to display the topic in a custom frame rather than in the left-hand pane, select the frameset name from Default Frame. (You need to design a custom frameset for this purpose.)

  3. If you want to use custom book and page icons rather than the ones supplied by RoboHELP, select the .BMP file from Custom Image File.

  4. Click OK and compile the project.

 

Tips:

  • For books and pages to automatically synchronize with the topic content displayed at the right side of the HTML help viewer or browser, the help topic file names need to use underscores rather than spaces. To rename existing files, select Convert Spaces to Underscores (Tools menu).

  • RoboHELP can automatically insert underscores by default when you create new topics. Select Options (Tools menu), click the General tab, and select Use underscore with file names.

  • The TOC Styles tab includes an option for Binary TOC. A binary contents file is only recommended for extremely large help systems. You can only use it with compiled Microsoft HTML Help and it does not support customization or external TOC files (merged tables of contents). For further information, see Comparing binary TOCs to site map tables of contents.

  • To use custom book and page icons, you'll need to create an icon strip. Microsoft HTML Help documentation (available from their HTML Help Developer's Web site) provides detailed information about creating icon strips.