How To Create Table Of Content In Confluence

Add the Table of Contents macro to a page to help your readers skip directly to the information they're looking for.

This macro is great for situations where:

you have a large page with lots of information
you want to build your headings into a neat table of contents.

This macro is popular because it helps you navigate lengthy pages. The macro organises your table of contents by nesting Heading 2 under Heading 1, and indenting progressively, like in the image below.

Screenshot: Table of Contents macro neatly organises lengthy blog content.

Using the Table of Contents macro

To add the Table of Contents macro to a page:

From the editor toolbar, choose Insert > Other Macros.
ChooseTable of Contents from theConfluence content category.
Enter any parameters.
ChooseInsert.

You can then publish your page to see the macro in action.

Screenshot: Entering parameters for the Table of Contents macro.

Change the macro parameters

Macro parameters are used to change the behaviour of a macro.

To change the macro parameters:

In the editor, click the macro placeholder and chooseEdit.
Update the parameters as required then chooseInsert.

Here's a list of the parameters available in this macro.

Parameter	Default	Description
Output Type `(type`)	list	list — produces a typical list-type table of contents. flat — produces a horizontal menu-type series of links.
Display Section Numbering `(outline`)	clear	Select the check box to apply outline numbering to your headings, for example: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3.
List Style `(style`)	disc	Select the style of bullet point for each list item. You can use any valid CSS style. For example: `none` — no list style is displayed `circle` — the list style is a circle `disc` — the list style is a filled circle. This is the typical bullet list, and is used for this example list. `square` — the list style is a square `decimal` — the list is numbered (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) `lower-alpha` — the list is lower-case, alphabetized (a, b, c, d, e) `lower-roman` — the list style is lower roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi) `upper-roman` — the list style is upper roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, V, VI)
Heading Indent `(indent`)		Sets the indent for a list according to CSS quantities. Entering `10px` will successively indent heading groups by 10px. For example, level 1 headings will be indented 10px and level 2 headings will be indented an additional 10px.
Separator `(separator`)	brackets	This parameter applies to flat lists only. You can enter any of the following values: `brackets` — Each item is enclosed by square brackets: [ ]. `braces` — Each item is enclosed by braces: { }. `parens` — Each item is enclosed by parentheses: ( ). `pipe` — Each item is separated by a pipe: anything — Each item is separated by the value you enter. You can enter any text as a separator, for example "***". If using a custom separator, be aware that text displays exactly as entered, with no additional white space to further separate the characters.
Minimum Heading Level `(minLevel`)	1	Select the highest heading level to start your TOC list. For example, entering 2 will include levels 2, and lower, headings, but will not include level 1 headings.
Maximum Heading Level `(maxLevel`)	7	Select the lowest heading level to include. For example, entering 2 will include levels 1 and 2, but will not include level 3 headings and below.
Include Headings `(include`)		Filter headings to include according to specific criteria. You can use wildcard characters. See Sun's Regex documentation for examples of constructing regular expression strings.
Exclude Headings `(exclude`)		Filter headings to enclude according to specific criteria. You can use wildcard characters. See Sun's Regex documentation for examples of constructing regular expression strings.
Printable `(printable`)	checked	By default, the TOC is set to print. If you clear the check box, the TOC will not be visible when you print the page.
CSS Class Name `(class`)		If you have custom TOC styles in your CSS style sheet, use this parameter to output the TOC inside `<div>` tags with the specified class attribute.
Absolute URL `(absoluteUrl` )		By default, the links in the TOC are relative URLs pointing to the current page. If checked, the links in the TOC will be full URLs. This setting is useful when you are including a page with a Table of Contents in another page, and want to control where the links should take the user.

Where the parameter name used in Confluence storage format or wikimarkup is different to the label used in the macro browser, it will be listed below in brackets (example).

Examples

The examples below are based on this table of contents:

Filtered Table of Contents

This example filters the headings to include those that contain 'Favorite', but excludes headings which end with 'Things'. The list is styled with Roman numerals.

Parameter	Value
List Style	`upper-roman`
Include Headings	Favourite.*
Exclude Headings	.*Things

The resulting table of contents is:

Flat List

This example filters all headings to render a flat list of 'Unknowns' enclosed in square brackets (the default list style).

Parameter	Value
Output Type	flat
Maximum Heading Level	2
Include Headings	Unknown.*

The resulting table of contents is:

Other ways to add this macro

Add this macro as you type

Type { followed by the start of the macro name, to see a list of macros.

Add this macro using wiki markup

This is useful when you want to add a macro outside the editor, for example as custom content in the sidebar, header or footer of a space.

Macro name:toc

Macro body: None.

This example shows a list-type table of contents.

            {toc:printable=true|style=square|maxLevel=2|indent=5px|minLevel=2|class=bigpink|exclude=[1//2]|type=list|outline=true|include=.*}

This example shows a flat table of contents.

            {toc:printable=true|maxLevel=2|minLevel=2|class=bigpink|exclude=[1//2]|type=flat|outline=true|separator=pipe|include=.*}

Notes and known issues

When you use a Table of Contents macro in a template, you will see an error when you preview the template itself. But the Table of Contents macro works on the pages that people create from the template – the table of contents shows up after they have saved the page. (This is probably because the template is not defined as a page, and the Table of Contents macro works for pages only.)
The Table of Contents macro only displays page or blog post content. You can't use it to add a table of contents of headings in a comment for example.
Due to an outstanding issue in the Table of Contents macro (CONF-10619), the macro browser's Refresh function does not render any parameter modifications. Currently, the rendering of parameter value modifications to the Table of Contents macro occurs only after the page is saved.

Using HTML heading markup with the Table of Contents macro
The Table of Contents macro cannot handle HTML heading markup on its own. Hence, if you use the HTML and HTML Include macros to render HTML heading markup in a Confluence page, the Table of Contents macro will not create a contents list out of these headings.
However, if you insert an HTML anchor into each HTML heading on your page (based on the following syntax), the Table of Contents macro will incorporate these headings into your contents list.
```
                <h2><a name="pagename-headingname"></a>Heading Name</h2>              
```
The syntax for the anchor name is the page name and heading name separated by a hyphen. Remove all spaces and convert all text to lower case. Convert all punctuation marks to their URL-encoded equivalent.
There is a known issue where if you click a heading in the Table of Contents macro, then click the back button in your browser, you won't be returned to the table of contents (or to your previous page). As a workaround, use the Table of Content Zone Macro. See CONFSERVER-40462 - Getting issue details... STATUS and CONFSERVER-52497 - Getting issue details... STATUS for more information.