Support table of content [toc]

When I was writing a long note in markdown, it is kind of annoying to scroll from top to bottom every time I reopen the note because of jumping back from another link.

So, is there a way to support table of content syntax in markdown file? For example, when I type [toc], the Obisidian will display the table-of-content of current markdown file.

Thanks for any help in advance.

99 Likes

Would really love to see this feature, would basically work by creating links to each header in the file, similar to how it works in Google Docs

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Ideally it should be possible to:

  1. See the TOC in a sidepane so when you scroll down a long note you never lose sight of the TOC;
  2. Offer option to number the headings and subheadings.

Here is an example from Typora, with the ToC in the sidepane. That’s what I mean with my comment.

typoratoc

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It would also be useful if Obsidian would do folding in Preview mode, the way that Marked 2 does. That would be a useful alternative to a TOC. (When I read that Obsidian had folding, that was what I was expecting to find.)

If it can do it in Edit mode, would it be a lot harder to implement in Preview mode?

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It could be very useful, and I think an implementation similar to Typora with [TOC] showing a list of links to headers.

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Sounds to me what you really want is for obsidian to remember your place in a note, so that when you switch back to the note, you see the cursor in the same place and exact same content as before you switched. Also see Place cursor in editor when navigating back/forwards

A plugin that may be worth writing is to have a pop-up TOC when you right click!

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VSCode has a left side navigation pane where all the levels are listed, might be better than a TOC you need to scroll to all the time to see the contents. This might even be a plugin if those allow creating panes.

Having a [toc] at the top of a long note is useful when it’s exported as a PDF.

There’s a separate request for what you suggest.

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Yes. But if you use Pandoc with (hopefully internal links updated for real Markdown format) Obsidian notes in future you could get TOC via special macro for PDF.

I also really would love this. Also an optional document outline. I upvoted the mentioned thread for that feature too.

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+1. This is very much needed for a longer-form notes, for example when writing a book or report.

Currently it’s very difficult to navigate in a long document.

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I actually liked the way it is implimented in Typora. you can just type [TOC] anywhere and it generates a TOC for you.

But from usability wise, I prefer the way its done in Zettlr, where you get a small button with all the headings listed. Just tap on the heading and you can jump to the section. Its quite handy

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I think both options make sense - having the TOC inline with a [toc] directive, as well as being able to show it in a separate pane. Similar to how code IDEs show the structure of code (its classes and methods) as outline.

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I thought it’d be nice to see the toc in different formats according to what the user chooses in the plugin menu.
My personal absolute favorite way to view the toc would be Google Docs style, where there’s a subtle overlay on the left side to navigate to any header/subheader of the doc file.

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As others have already mentioned, for the time being we can use the TOC features of Typora which integrates nicely with Obsidian when setting it as the default app for opening MD documents and adding a keyboard shortcut for that (possible since the latest insider version). Typora also provides a nice sidebar-TOC similar to Google Docs.

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I’m aggregating a lot of resources from different places, cited under a lot of headers and subheaders. (Yes, I use all 6 sizes!) It would be fantastic to be able to hit a button and auto generate a TOC list of links to all headers, which I could then modify/re-arrange as I wanted. As an alternative, perhaps an outline sidepane (like you can get in gdocs) that lists all the headers in order.

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It’s been requested already - Support table of content [toc].

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If you are using ios 1writer or iawriter you can automatically generate TOC by typing {{TOC}} at the top of your obsidian document, although it won’t display the table of contents in obsidian it will in these apps.

Just to chime in, as a new user who’s transitioning over from Qownnotes, this would be a wonderful addition – a ToC pane for quick navigation is the only major thing I’m missing so far. Inline ToC would be nice too, though a bit less of a priority for me (since I’d be mainly using Obsidian for reading my notes in Markdown, and would just add a ToC with Pandoc when exporting to PDF).

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I rely on and appreciate this feature so significantly in my other apps! And I’m so eager to phase those apps out for Obsidian!

Oh My Gosh! Why can’t we have this yet? Taking soooo looong! :sob:
Kidding! :rofl: I can be patient :timer_clock:
Just don’t want to be for TOC

6 Likes