Basic Working Procedures > Managing Topics in the TOC

In this topic:

The Invisible Topics section of the Table of Contents (TOC) tab can be organized into "chapters" and "sub-chapters" in exactly the same way as the normal TOC area. Since the topics in this section are invisible in your output this feature is only meaningful while you are editing – it simply helps you to organize your invisible topics better.

Restrictions in the Invisible topics section:

Although the Invisible Topics section looks very similar to the TOC it is actually a little different and there are a couple of restrictions: You cannot change the icons of topics in this section and you cannot convert a chapter/topic in this section to a chapter without text, or a chapter without text to a chapter/topic with text.

Organizing invisible topics in chapters:

You can use all the normal methods for promoting and demoting topics to arrange your invisible topics in chapters, sub-topics and sub-chapters.

This organization only has any meaning in the Help & Manual editor. It is completely irrelevant in your output because the topics are invisible and can only be accessed with links.

In the Invisible Topics section chapters <br>
without text are called "topic folders".

In the Invisible Topics section chapters
without text are called "topic folders".

Please note that the icons used in the Invisible topics section cannot be changed. Since they are only displayed in the editor and not in your output there would also not be much point in this. All topics and chapters with text use the standard question mark icon and all chapters without text use the folder icon.

Creating chapters without text:

You cannot convert an existing topic or chapter to a chapter without text in this section. To create a topic folder chapter without text as a "header" to organize invisible topics you must create a new topic.

1.	Click in the Invisible Topics section where you want to insert your chapter without text and use any of the standard methods to create a new topic.

2.	Select the Topic Folder option in the Item Type section of the Insert New Item dialog. (Chapters without text are called "topic folders" in the Invisible Topics section.)

Using include options for invisible topics:

•	Unlike Help & Manual 3 and below you can now use include options for invisible topics as well as for topics in the TOC. This means that you can now explicitly exclude and include invisible topics in your output on the basis of output format or user-defined include options.

This feature is particularly useful when you are using invisible topics as the source for embedded topics. It enables you to exclude the source topic from your output (the source topic is only needed at compile time to insert the embedded copies in your output).

For more details on using include options see Conditions and Customized Output.