How to Use Table of Contents

In many documents, there is a need to divide content, breaking it into discrete sections. For example, sections on a web page or chapters in a book make finding and reading of specific content more manageable. Navigating those sections can be done with the help of a table of contents. Fortunately, DEVONthink can display such a table in certain documents. Here’s how you can use it.

To view the table of contents, use Tools > Inspectors > Content > Table of Contents or the default shortcut ⌃4. While DEVONthink doesn’t support a table of contents for every file type, here are the ones it does currently.

• In PDFs with an internal outline, you can jump to any available chapter or section. Note, PDFs without an internal outline won’t have a table of contents displayed nor can DEVONthink generate one on its own at this time.
• In EPUB documents, jump to the desired chapter via the table of contents. This also is the default navigation method for this file type.
• For Markdown documents, section headings (e.g., H1, H2, etc.) are displayed as nested sections.
• For RTF documents, singular bold paragraphs are treated as sections.

As you can see, the first two options require a table of contents to be present in the document. However, the last two give you the ability to create your own as you write.

Lastly, while it doesn’t support creating a table of contents in Markdown or rich text right now, DEVONthink To Go is able to display a table of contents for PDFs with an internal outline. Open the PDF and tap the open book button in the toolbar to jump to where you’d like to read.