Planning a Table of Contents

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Microsoft Corporation

Updated June 10, 1999

Adding a table of contents to your help system provides users with a hierarchical view of the content. Users click a topic listed in the table of contents, and are taken directly to the information they are looking for.

You can design your table of contents so that the topics contained in your help system are organized by subject or by category. You can organize your subject topics in the table of contents using icons that identify main topics and subtopics. For example, if you use the default icons, HTML Help Workshop provides a "folder" icon for main topics and a "page" icon for subtopics. You can change the default icons or create your own contents icons. If you are designing a table of contents for a Web site, special icons indicating new or updated topics are available to help users quickly scan the table of contents for new information.

You can indent topic titles so they are easier for a user to see when they are scanning the list of topics. If you are designing a table of contents that will use the Help Viewer, you can customize the way the Navigation pane of the Help Viewer looks.

If you are designing your own frameset, you can add HTML design elements to customize the frame to which you add the HTML Help ActiveX control.

Items from the accessibility word list can be added as table of contents entries so that disabled users can easily find the information they need about your software product.