# Creating table of contents in blog, etc.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-table-of-contents-in-blog-etc/550049>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 12, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-table-of-contents-in-blog-etc/550049 "2010-08-12T16:00:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mshar253](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@mshar253](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mshar253)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-table-of-contents-in-blog-etc/550049/1 "2010-08-12T16:00:41Z")

</div>

I’m writing a guide to something, and at the top of the document there will be a table of contents. I’ll be posting this guide on my Blogger blog, and I also intend to put it in a Facebook note (to maximize its visibility). Ideally, I’ll be able to make the table of contents in link form, meaning that one can click on an entry in the table (say, section 1) and the page will jump down to the corresponding section without opening a new tab or window.

I’m fairly proficient with computers, but I’m by no means an HTML wizard. Is this an overly complicated task? If it’s not, can someone briefly explain to me how it’s done? I’ve read about “HTML anchors,” which I think might be the key to discovering what I need to do, but I haven’t found a Web page in which HTML anchors are explained in layman’s terms.

Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-table-of-contents-in-blog-etc/550049/2 "2010-08-12T17:03:37Z")

</div>

You need an anchor an ad link to it. The anchor marks the spot on the page that you want to jump to (ie, the start of a chapter). The link goes from the table of contents to that anchor. Like so…  
Table of Contents  
\<a href="#Chapter1"\>Chapter 1: The Beginning\</a\>  
\<a name=“Chapter1”\>  
CHAPTER ONE  
Call me Ishmael

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mshar253](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@mshar253](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mshar253)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-table-of-contents-in-blog-etc/550049/3 "2010-08-12T17:05:12Z")

</div>

Great; thank you so much!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creating-table-of-contents-in-blog-etc/550049/4 "2010-08-12T18:02:46Z")

</div>

Actually you want…

\<a name=“Chapter1”\>\</a\>  
CHAPTER ONE

Close that tag, otherwise Chapter One will be one big link.