When printing a book that has either a simple or structured internal layout, it is often useful to create a table of contents – an ordered list of the titles of its parts, whether they are chapters, sections, subsections, etc. The titles of a book, besides serving an aesthetic function, constitute its structural backbone and are essential for creating the table of contents.

Biblos is a Word processor that allows you to create and manage the title structure of a book, including the automatic creation of the table of contents or summary. You control the appearance of both the titles and the table of contents, even considering a later Braille printing of the book.

Chapters are the main sections that make up a book. The first paragraph of each chapter serves as its title. Visually, the titles are simply paragraphs that, compared to the main text body, use a different style. For example, they might have a larger font size, be in bold, have greater spacing, or be slightly separated from the body text, and so on. Structurally, the titles provide the chapters with a hierarchy. A book can consist solely of single-level chapters (such as a novel with first-level titles), or it can include second-level sections (like an essay with first- and second-level titles), third-level subsections (as in a manual with first-, second-, and third-level titles), and so on. Imagine this structure as a tree view: first-level nodes represent the chapters; second-level nodes, which are within the chapters, represent the sections; third-level nodes, which are within the sections, represent the subsections...

Biblos allows you to create a hierarchical structure up to nine levels. You can manage the Titles through the Insert/Titles menu. Let's go through how to structure your book.

First, we structure a book by assigning first-level title properties to all chapters. Start by launching Biblos and opening a book, or simply start writing.

1. Place the cursor on the first chapter – that is, on the paragraph that introduces the first chapter of the book. It might be just a number, a number along with a title, etc.

2. Use the menu Insert/Titles/Add Title...

3. The level is already set to 1, so click the OK button.

4. You will notice that a graphic appears to the left of the chapter. This is only for your reference, to indicate that it is a title. In fact, if you were to print the book, it would be an invisible element.

5. Repeat these operations for every chapter.

At the end of this process, you will have a book with a simple structure of first-level chapters. You can manage all titles via the Insert/Titles/Customize Titles... menu. Essentially, you already have a table of contents, albeit one automatically generated by the Software based on the book's titles.

The table of contents must also be functional for reading on paper. Therefore, to create a table of contents within the book that remains visible in both ink printing and Braille, you need to use a special feature for generating the index. The tools for managing indexes can be found in the Insert/Indexes menu.

After creating the titles and structuring the book, let's create the table of contents.

1. Position the cursor on the line where the table of contents should begin. It could be after the cover page or at the end of the book – the choice is yours.

2. Use the menu Insert/Indexes/Create Summary...

3. The first option to choose is the type of template. The template determines the appearance of the title on each line of the index. You can choose to display only the title, the hierarchical path of the title, or only the current level, or you can write a custom template. In our case, choose one of the preset templates. Later on, you can experiment further to understand which template best meets your needs.

4. Let's skip the difference between an index and a summary. Biblos refers to a summary as an index whose titles include even a brief description of the chapter's contents. This is not applicable in our example, so leave the Add Summary checkbox unchecked.

5. In the Page Type field, choose the position where the page number should appear. Next to each chapter title, the page number on which it appears in the book is always shown. You can choose whether to place the page number to the right or left of the title.

6. Between the chapter title and the page number, depending on the title's length, the empty space is filled with a variable number of the same character. The Fill Type field is used to choose the character with which to fill this space.

7. The Maximum Level field is very important for choosing up to which level of titles to include in the index. In our case, it is sufficient to include only the first level since we have only inserted first-level titles. For books with a more complex structure, use this field to decide how many sublevels to display in the table of contents.

8. The fields Ink Template and Braille Template are very important for deciding how and which page number to display on the index line. Both in the ink template and the Braille template you can use the three types of available variables. For our example, in the Ink Template leave “%pp” and in the Braille Template leave “%bp.”

9. You can check the appearance of your table of contents by exploring the other tab in the creation window. Under the Appearance tab, you can control the indents, spacing, paragraph, font type, etc. For now, let's skip this tab, as it would require a separate article. Then click the OK button and the table of contents is written into the book.

The book you have just structured, and in which you have created the table of contents, can be printed both in ink and in Braille. Since Titles and Indexes are special elements, it is essential to choose the EBIBLOS format to save your book. If you export to other formats, the special elements will be converted into the most appropriate ones for the chosen saving format.

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