I have been keeping project "fact books", by using the initial compound syntax: ON TABLE SET COMPOUND {OPEN|CLOSE}. In EXCEL, this works fine- I get a tab for each TABLE request - various data surveys for a given project - labeled by the titletext. This works fine, but lately, as the number of worksheets increase, I am tiring of having to scroll constantly right or left for the worksheet I need to reference.

I would like to be able to simply merge all these unrelated outputs into a single file. I started looking at COMPOUND LAYOUT PCHOLD FORMAT PDF, but I have two problems:

1. the default TOC looks horrible- can the appearance be modified, and
2. the TOC lets me go to a page, but NOT back to the TOC- in other words, a one way link.

I would like to have a TOC for unrelated output, with a link prior to that output that allows me to head back to the TOC. Even better would be the same type of TOC actually in PDF manuals that IBI produces.

I confess to being new at this: this was my first stab at COMPOUND LAYOUT PCHOLD FORMAT PDF, and I still walking through the doc. Thanks in advance.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FP Mod Chuck,

ok, I got a little further in the doc- it turns out that those nice "table of content" listings on the left side of a PDF manual are called "Bookmarks." Who knew.

Adding the following line of code - OBJECT=BOOKMARKS, $ - after the COMPOUND LAYOUT PCHOLD FORMAT PDF line had them magically appear. Now I don't even need the TOC, but it looks like Bookmarks needs a TOC for the Bookmark entries.

updated questions:
1.is the TOC required for Bookmarks in a COMPOUND LAYOUT report?
2. Can the TOC be formatted/noprinted?
3. Other than the internal HELP, has there ever been a Summit presentation that anyone has seen that talks about some of these issues?

Happy weekending...

Sigh- let this be a lesson to folks to DO NOT RTFM

1. is the TOC required for Bookmarks in a COMPOUND LAYOUT report? Answer- NO. Once you enable Bookmarks on the Compound document itself (off by default), you do not need to display a TOC.

2. Can the TOC be formatted/noprinted? I think the answer to this question is Yes, but since I do not need a TOC (I am content with Bookmarks), I will investigate this no further.

In case there is a simple answer to the formatting TOC question, I will leave this up for a few days before posting as solved.