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Subject:Leaderless tables of contents From:holland -at- CVAX -dot- IPFW -dot- INDIANA -dot- EDU Date:Thu, 5 May 1994 20:43:05 EST
In a recent msg, Sue MacIntosh asked what leader characters people use in
tables of contents. My answer is: None. Instead, I put the page number on
the LEFT, as shown below. This practice (1) obviates the need for hideous
leaders and (2) makes wrapping of entries to a second line automatic.
1 THIS IS A MAJOR TOPIC
3 This Is a Second-Degree Hed
4 This could be a third, though it'd look much better if I could
play around with fonts on the net
6 SO HERE IS ANOTHER MAJOR TOPIC
10 AND ANOTHER, OF COURSE
This system doesn't work very well if the TOC contains numbered sections,
'cause the page numbers and section numbers are juxtaposed confusingly; but
elsewise, I find it easy to produce and to use.
Steven Hollander
holland -at- cvax -dot- ipfw -dot- indiana -dot- edu
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
P.S.: Someday, perhaps they'll reinvent the white pages of the phone book (as
I have for our in-house directory), putting the phone-number column on the
left. In general, whenever there's a fixed-length column (or nearly fixed, as
in the case of phone numbers), putting it on the left saves space and makes
composition and usage easier.
