Improve table of contents block (TOC) - index, page numbers, sections, design
Joe Tuan
Can't create a viable table of contents without allowing formatting changes.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Merged in a post:
Inhoudstabel is geen echte inhoudstabel, eerder een kaarteninhoud
Tom De Baere
als een bepaalde sectie met een titel doorloopt over meerder kaarten, dan zie je dit ook zo in de inhoudstabel. dat is niet hoe een echter inhoudstabel zou moeten werken, althans als je de filosofie van "Word" zou volgen. Gamma werkt met kaarten, dus dit is een discussie waard. Maar wanneer je een document wil maken, dat afdrukbaar is, ga je vaak werken met A4 indelen. En dan ga je vaak met één pagina onvoldoende hebben voor een bepaald onderwerp dat past onder een titel, en ga je een 2e kaart moeten gebruiken.
Ik weet wel dat je kaarten kan nesten, en op die manier kan werken. Het probleem daarmee is dat wanneer je dat gaat exporteren in PDF, het er niet goed uitziet....
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Merged in a post:
Inhoudstabel instelbaar
Tom De Baere
inhoudstabel kan geconfigureerd worden, waarbij je pagina nummers, header level, etc.... kan instellen, om op die manier als een echter professionele inhoudstabel te werken.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Thanks for writing this up — totally get what you mean. Right now the “inhoudstabel” is basically reflecting our card structure, so if one section spills across multiple cards it shows up that way, which feels weird if you’re aiming for a Word-style, print-ready doc flow (A4, continuous sections, etc.).
A couple quick Qs so we can pass the right thing to the team:
- In your ideal world, should the TOC show one entry per heading(even if it spans multiple cards), and then jump/scroll to thestartof that section?
- When you export to PDF, what looks “not good” with nested cards — is it spacing/page breaks/indentation, or something else? If you’re up for it, a screenshot or quick Loom of the TOC + the exported PDF would help a ton.
Tom De Baere
Nik Payne (Gamma design) The issue with the way it works today is the following : when you have a section that crosses multiple pages, it will always show the first line of the page. So you end up with TOC titles that actually are not supposed to be there in the TOC. Because they are just the continuation of a section.
When exporting a document from gamma to PDF, with nested cards, the layout is gone, or at least the reader has lost the connection between the pages. Originally for long documents we used flow page layout (not sure if that is the correct name), meaning a page can be as long as you want. But we found out that people often print pages, and then you end up with A4 prints that are unreadable. So we are switching back to "fit" or try to fit contents to an A4.
Because of this switch, TOC issues start appearing, because you have to split content that belong to 1 section over multiple pages.
Additional issue is that with longer documents, where we are now duplicating the titles of pages in to "section name" and on the next pages "section name - continued", you end up with a TOC page where all the sections do not fit on the A4 page anymore..... full circle ;-)
Attach a screenshot of an A4, and then 2 nested sections.
I am not sure what my ideal world is, but I would like to be able to select which title will appear in the TOC. In MS Word you don't have to think about that, it just appears, and you select the depth of what you want to show (H1, H2, H3, etc...).
Page numbers are handy to add in TOC, when people print. In the digital world you do not really need them in the TOC, but when discussing it is needed that you can refer to a page number.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Tom De Baere: Thank you. This is helpful!
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Tom De Baere thanks for the suggestion — totally get the desire for a more “real” pro table of contents. When you say configurable, what’s the main problem you’re trying to solve right now: is it printing/exporting (needing page numbers), or navigation inside Gamma?
Also, which settings matter most for your workflow?
- Page numbers (PDF/print)
- Which header levels show up (H1/H2/H3)
- Indentation / styling
If you’ve got an example from Word/Google Docs/Notion (or a quick screenshot/Loom of what you’re aiming for), that’d help us nail the right behavior.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Merged in a post:
Feature Request: Alphabetical Sorting for Table of Contents
Jere Gault
Hello Gamma Team,
I’m a frequent Gamma user and rely heavily on the Table of Contents to navigate large decks—especially a master “Library of Saved Articles” that contains more than 50 reusable cards. As this library grows, efficient navigation becomes increasingly important.
Right now, the TOC reflects the manual order of cards in the deck, but there is no way to sort or filter cards alphabetically by title. For users managing large collections of reusable content, this creates friction and slows down workflows.
Feature Request
Please consider adding a Sort by Title option for the Table of Contents and/or Outline view. Even a simple alphabetical toggle (A→Z / Z→A) would dramatically improve usability for decks with many cards.
Why This Matters
• Large decks become difficult to scan manually
• Reordering 50+ cards by hand is time‑consuming and error‑prone
• Many users maintain libraries of reusable content, templates, or reference cards
• Alphabetical sorting is a familiar, intuitive organizational tool
• It would make the TOC a true index rather than just a visual list
Ideal Implementation (any of these would help)
• A Sort Alphabetically toggle in the TOC
• A Sort by Title option in Outline view
• A Filter by Title search bar at the top of the TOC
• A Group by First Letter option for large decks
Even one of these would make a meaningful difference.
Thank you for considering this enhancement. Gamma has become central to my workflow, and this feature would make large‑deck management significantly more efficient.
Jere Gault
Nic, by the way, I sorted the TOC using LIST on the left sidebar. It was easy though tedious to resort the cards one by one, but it worked. Incidentally, I was able to click on more that one card in the same category and move multiple cards together and simultaneously.
Jere Gault
Item #1: Reorder both the TOC and the cards in the deck.
Item #2: Yes, the name of each card begins with the name of the category to which the card is assigned, e.g., COLLECTION SERVICES, DOCUMENTS, FINANCES, INSURANCE. A total of 11 standard categories in all. For example, the name of one of our cards is COLLECTION SERVICES--GARBAGE/RECYCLE PICKUP. Another card is named DOCUMENTS--ACCESSING YOUR HOA'S OPERATING DOCUMENTS.
Item #3: Here is the link to the TOC deck: https://library-of-saved-cards-d-i457a0n.gamma.site/
Item #4: Here is the link to the Excel file I use to search for cards I may want to Copy from the TOC to the upcoming (next) monthly Newsletter deck: https://1drv.ms/x/c/E40DFA3180CA7C88/IQAvZw1_u9iPR5NGc3mpqCQBAeS5hBuHcxS5E3XpMQfaTNI?e=vDOtLH. Excel and Word have good sorting features, but I do not need the full extent of either of their sorting capabilities.
Item #5: If you still need screenshots, let me know.
Item #6: I am an 84 year old man who has been using Gamma for only two months, and I am thrilled with the ease and intuitive navigation processes that brought my skills this far this fast. As President of our HOA for the past five years, I have previously been using Word to produce the Newsletters. Now it's GAMMA all the way! What you guys are doing to make things easier and better for the rest of us out here is a tribute to your own skills and abilities. Thanks.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Jere Gault: Thank you!
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Jere Gault love this request — and thanks for the super clear write-up.
Totally get the pain: once a “library” deck gets into the 50+ card zone, scrolling a TOC that’s basically just “whatever order the cards happen to be in” stops being navigation and starts being a scavenger hunt.
A couple quick questions so we can make sure we build the
right
version of this:1) When you say “sort alphabetically,” do you want it to
only
affect the TOC/Outline display (leaving the actual card order unchanged), or should it actually reorder the deck too?2) In your workflow, are card titles pretty stable/unique? (e.g., “How to onboard”, “Pricing FAQ”), or do you have lots of similar prefixes like “Template – …” where grouping/search might be more useful than pure A→Z?
Also, if you’re up for it, a screenshot or quick Loom of your Library deck + how you currently hunt for a card would be super helpful. Bonus points if you can show an example of another tool’s TOC/index behavior you like.
I’ll pass this along to the team — I agree that even a simple A→Z toggle or a search box in the TOC would be a big quality-of-life win for big decks.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Merged in a post:
hierarchal table of contents to PDF
Dionys Gragousian
I need to simply need to create a hierarchal table of content without using nested cards or manually creating my own manual table of content with Gamma web card links.
This means allowing me to execute indents to the auto created table of of contents. After this I will then export to a PDF
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Hey Dionys,
Have you tried using our table of contents block?
Dionys Gragousian
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
The output for me is always PDF.
Your auto table of content feature doesn’t allow for any indent editing, so you can’t create a hierarchical table of content; it’s just one big bullet pointed list which isn’t acceptable.
Creating a table of contents manually in Gamma is also not acceptable as when you export to PDF all of the links are gamma web page links
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Dionys Gragousian thanks!
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