Auto-Generating Glossaries, Indexes, and TOCs for Print Outputs

Options in the Advanced tab of print-based targets let you automatically add glossary, index, and TOC proxies to output. This means you do not need to create unique topics and insert proxies into them manually.

How to Enable Auto-Generated Proxies

  1. Open a target.
  2. On the Advanced tab of the Target Editor, select any of the following:

    • Glossary This proxy is added before the Index proxy page.
    • Index This proxy is added at the end of the output if any index keywords are present in the project.
    • TOC This proxy is added at the beginning of the output. If your page layout includes a Title page type (see Inserting Pages in Page Layouts), the TOC proxy is added after the title page in the output.

    These options are disabled by default for existing targets, but enabled for new targets. If a TOC, index, or Glossary proxy is already present, the corresponding option has no effect.

  3. Click Save the active file. to save your work.

Which Page Layout is Used?

If a TOC, index, or glossary is auto-generated, how does Flare know which page layout to use for them in the output? It uses the same page layout that is being used for the topic(s) just before it.

Example You have an outline TOC set up like this:

In this case, the generated TOC is going to be placed directly after the title page. It will use the "Title" page layout which is set on the first "Title Page" entry. That page layout has a Title page type in it. That's how Flare knows it should place the TOC directly after it and to use the same page layout to display the TOC.

The generated glossary is going to be placed after the final entry, called "Topic 17," and the generated index will be placed after the glossary. Both of these will use the "Chapters" page layout, because it's the last one that was set.

Auto-Generate vs. Manual Proxies

The auto-generate method is much quicker and easier than the manual method. The manual method is more flexible but requires you to perform a number of extra steps, such as creating topics, inserting proxies, and adding files to the outline TOC. So if you simply want to quickly create print output with generated TOCs, glossaries, or indexes, the auto-generate option might be best for you. But if you want more control over the placement and look of the generated TOCs, glossaries, and indexes, you should use the manual method.

Editing Attributes for Generated TOCs, Indexes, and Glossaries

You can change the heading text for each of these auto-generated proxies in the language skin. See Changing the Heading Text for Auto-Generated Proxies.

All other attributes for the generated glossary, index, and TOC can be controlled in your stylesheet. See Editing the Look of a Glossary, Editing the Look of Your Print Index, and Editing the Look of a Print TOC.

Example

Example You need to create a PDF manual with five short chapters. You've created 17 topics that will make up those five chapters, and you've created a separate topic for a title page.

Your topics use <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> tags. These will become important when the TOC is generated.

You've inserted index keywords throughout the topics. These will become important when the index is generated.

You've created a glossary file and associated it with the PDF target you're going to use. This will become important when the glossary is generated.

You've put all of your topics into an outline TOC file. You've associated your title topic with one page layout, and you've assigned a different page layout to the five topics that will serve as the starting point for each of the five chapters.

In the Target Editor, you select the Advanced tab and select Generate TOC Proxy, Generate Index Proxy, and Generate Glossary Proxy. In addition, you also select an option labeled Inject empty pages as needed to ensure TOC nodes start on their selected pages and another labeled Use TOC depth for heading levels. These last two options are not required to use the auto-generate feature, but they are popular options for generating print-based output.

After you generate the PDF output, it looks something like this:

What’s Noteworthy?

Note In order for a glossary to be generated, you must have a glossary file in your project that is associated with the target. See Adding a Glossary File and Associating Glossaries With Targets.

Note In order for an index to be generated, you must insert at least one index keyword in a topic or snippet to be included in the output. See Inserting Index Keywords.

Note In order for the generated TOC to be useful, you should have headings in your topics with the appropriate styles (i.e., h1 through h6). See Applying Styles to Content and Types of Styles in Flare.