Navigate Your Notes with Evernote's Table of Contents

 

August 19 2024 | Issue 5 | Link to this issue | Subscribe

Hi Reader –

Lost in a sea of notes? The Table of Contents feature is your new navigation tool.When you run your life and business in Evernote, it's normal to — at some point — feel overwhelmed. As your use of Evernote expands, use Table of Contents (TOC) in your account to effortlessly organize and navigate your growing collection of notes. 

Easy Navigation with a Table of Contents

Having a clickable table of contents in your notes is both a practical way to organize high-level information and also helps you to navigate to that content quickly. Whether you're managing lengthy project plans, compiling research, or creating comprehensive guides, the TOC feature ensures that you can quickly find and jump to the exact information you need. This enhanced navigation not only saves time but also improves your overall productivity within Evernote. There’s always been the option to manually create a TOC that links to multiple notes in your account. And, recently, Evernote added a new, automated way to create a TOC that links to sections of the same note. Here’s how both options work: 

[New] Automatic TOC Feature

Evernotes new Table of Contents feature creates a TOC that allows you to quickly jump to locations within a note. To use it, you must first have heading styles (H1, H2, or H3) applied to text that represent different sections of your note. Any H1, H2, or H3 text will appear in the TOC you create.Then, simply use the Insert button, or the in-line slash command (/) and select Table of Contents from the menu that appears. Evernote will insert a TOC that links to all the header sections of your note. 

This automated TOC is perfect for quickly summarizing and navigating to content inside your note. Each item in the table of contents is a hyperlink that jumps directly to the corresponding section within the same file, making it easier to find what you need without scrolling endlessly.  And, any header text changes or H1/H2/H3 additions you make to your note will automatically get updated in the TOC!  Note – If you aren’t seeing the auto-updating part of this feature, it’s brand new and requires v10.101.3+ – download the latest version here.

🧠 Academy Members: Watch the Masterclass: Table of Contents for detailed training and use-case examples on all the Table of Contents options.

Build a TOC to Multiple Notes 

You can also manually build a TOC that links to multiple notes using note links. This power-user move makes project management in Evernote much easier. Simply copy the link to the note (or notes) that you want to include in the table of contents, and paste them into a new note. You’ll be able to link to the note and a backlink to your TOC will be automatically generated: 

 
 

In this example from my account, I’ve created a TOC note that gives me a high level summary of all the masterclass training outlines I’ve created for Academy members and provides easy navigation to each training Note. Here’s how I did it:

  • I have a Notebook that contains the notes I use to develop and deliver the masterclass trainings.

  • Each Note in this Notebook contains an outline of all that I cover in that training. 

  • I’ve grabbed the Note Link to each masterclass Note and pasted the links into a new Note which acts as my TOC. As you can see in the gif, each link takes me to that individual Masterclass note.

  • I titled this Note: TOC: Academy Masterclass Trainings

  • Bonus Tip: I used the Pin to Notebook feature to pin this TOC Note to the top of my notebook for each access.

Creating this kind of manual table of contents is simple and quick once you know how (the note in the demo took me 5 seconds to create). The key is to understand note links and how to create them in bulk.

🧠 Academy Members: Sharpen your note-link skills (and learn how to a create manual TOC in seconds) in this Masterclass on Note Links.

Combining TOC Methods for Efficiency

Both automatic and manual TOC are powerful features that can be used in a wide variety of use cases. It’s simple to start with the new automated TOC feature, and you’ll more effortlessly manage projects when you learn to build manual TOC notes in your project Notebooks.If you aren’t using them already, give them a try today.

Cheers to your productivity!

Stacey 💚

Subscribe to the newsletter

Do more with Evernote. Get expert tips, discover new features, and boost your productivity. Join 15K+ readers learning ways to organize their digital lives with Evernote.

 
Stacey Harmon