General formatting question for a TOC?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Tammy Van Boening wondered: <<when I create any TOC ... I have always  
been rigorously edited to include at least the first two heading  
levels of your heading styles, and sometimes the first three. I have  
HeadingLevel1/Heading 1 aligned to the left and subsequent heading  
levels indented accordingly - Heading2 Levels slightly indented  
beneath Heading1 Levels, and Heading3 Levels slightly indented  
beneath Heading 2 levels. I don't go for a bunch of different fonts,  
bolding, etc. The fonts are all the same for the TOC entries, just  
different in indentation and font size. >>

That's a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. Think of the purpose of  
the TOC: to show people the structure and contents of the book so  
they know what the parts are and how they relate to each other.  
Except for very simplistic chapters or sections, you need to present  
as many headings as necessary to accomplish this -- at least the  
first three levels of heading in a complex document because that's  
the information readers will use to find areas of interest in the  
book and get to those areas in a hurry.

If you're a minimalist, simple indentation is all you need to make  
the structure clear. There's nothing wrong with adding slight  
formatting variations on top of that (e.g., bolding the level 1  
headings), but that violates the minimalist rule of thumb: apply only  
the minimum formatting necessary to communicate the differences  
between levels. A little "color" won't hurt, but once you start  
adding dozens of formatting variations, you get into the realm of  
useless and possibly harmful visual clutter.

<<However, an edit that I received recently indicated that the  
editor's (i.e., developer's) preference was to put in only Heading 1  
levels - it looked different/funky to him to have more than one level  
in the TOC. >>

Heh. Have you told him yet that in your professional opinion as a  
programmer, you think his coding is different/funky? <grin>

Deeds speek louder than words. Create two TOCs, one with only the L1  
heads and one with the top three levels. Give him the first one and  
ask him to find a specific topic (described by a level 3 heading) and  
go right to that topic without having to flip pages. Next, give him  
the full TOC and ask him to do the same task. Repeat a couple of  
times. He'll get the point.


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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