37 Comments
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Robert M. Ford's avatar

Great tip! I knew the 'how' (the 'old school' html way, at least), but you really claried the 'why' from a Substack perspective. Thanks!

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

It is the old school way!

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Robert M. Ford's avatar

I appreciate that thanks to you, I now know what the Substack floating links work. I'd been wondering about those. :-)

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

I can't remember how I figure it out but I'm glad I did haha

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Shannon McNamara's avatar

Adobe Express one-page websites are very similar (look/feel/features) to Substack. I always teach this feature to my students over there!

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

Oh that's neat, I haven't used Adobe Express!

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Rachel Lipson's avatar

This is so great! I just used it to put a TOC on a post I wrote a little while back on tips for visiting NOLA using credit card points and miles and it worked SO well! Many thanks :)

https://brooklynfamilytravelers.substack.com/p/the-new-orleans-edit

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Veronica Pullen's avatar

This is such a neat workaround for the lack of ‘insert table of contents’. Thank you.

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Andrea Amador's avatar

@Cassandra Campbell Thank you for this brilliant idea. Love this. Can’t wait to share.

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jvon.world's avatar

🔥🔥🔥

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Justin R.'s avatar

Thanks, I will keep this in mind.

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Perzen Patel's avatar

I do this for all my food writing because it often follows the story/food history/recipe format and allows the “just give me the recipe” grinches to get to where they need to be fast. Great post

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Andi O.'s avatar

Great to see an article about how to create a TOC for your text posts!

👉 The trick to seeing the link to a header (while in edit mode) is to:

1. click on the header text

2. hover just to the left of the first letter in the header

3. scroll up until you see the icon (without moving your mouse from that spot)

Note: the link icon will always appear in the upper area of the article (left of the header text, in a skinny margin), so if you have a looooooonnnnnggg article, you will need to head to the top while keeping your cursor within the margin just left of the header text until you see it.

I created a TOC for my page here:

https://giglfin.substack.com/p/byb-book-recommendations

...it works great for my long list of book recommendations by topic.

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

You figured out the trick! Thanks for sharing!

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Nikki Finlay's avatar

That’s helpful.

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Traiano Welcome's avatar

This is pretty worthless. Manually creating ToC defeats the point. Even a basic Wiki like Mediawiki or Confluence will simply generate a ToC from Headings and subheadings.

Come on substack - level up!

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Becca Law's avatar

This is super helpful !

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Victor 🇮🇪's avatar

Actually you can check if it works properly before publishing, any time by using the "secret draft link" in the editor.

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

That's never worked for me but very cool if it works for you! I always get a "Page note found" response until the article is live.

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𝕃𝕖𝕪𝕝𝕒 ℤ𝕖𝕟𝕠𝕟 🇦🇪's avatar

When I click on your table of contents links, a new window always opens.

Am I the only (mobile user) this happens to?

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

That's likely because you're in the app (which uses substack.com links) and I'm using links to my domain name. Substack isn't great at redirecting between the two.

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C.L. Rhodes's avatar

I failed to figure this out on my own last week while writing my longest post yet. I’m so glad you’ve shared the how-to so I can do it next time! Thank you!

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

It's not too late!

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C.L. Rhodes's avatar

Going to try and add it today!

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Sarah's avatar

Thank you for breaking this down so clearly. I have a question...

Is a 600-word newsletter long enough to include a table of contents? What about a 1000-word newsletter?

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

It can be if you have multiple sections!

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Charisse Tyson's avatar

This sounds like a great idea. I write about RV living, my Faith, and politics. It would be great if people could find posts that reflect what they want to read about. However, it sounds so complicated, and I'm afraid to try it.

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Casandra Campbell's avatar

It's actually pretty easy! I just wanted to show every step for anyone who might get confused. It'll only take a few minutes to figure out and then you'll be a pro :)

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