How to add extra space to the table of contents, list of figures and tables

25 Comments

The tocloft package implements a number of commands to customize the table of contents, list of figures and list of tables. One of these commands provided by the package adds whitespace before entries. This is particularly neat for short documents, but might also improve the readability in longer content lists. However, it has its limitations and I will therefore introduce a more flexible approach allowing conditional addition of whitespace.

 
Lets assume we have the following chapters and sections in our thesis.

defaulttoc

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\begin{document}
	\tableofcontents
	\chapter{Introduction}
	\chapter{Main chapter one}
		\section{Background}
		\section{Methods}
		\section{Results}
		\section{Conclusion}
	\chapter{Main chapter two}
		\section{Background}
		\section{Methods}
		\section{Results}
		\section{Conclusion}
	\chapter{Main chapter three}
		\section{Background}
		\section{Methods}
		\section{Results}
		\section{Conclusion}
	\chapter{Conclusion}
\end{document}

 
Let’s add some whitespace between sections to spread the contents more evenly over the entire page. Here, I use \cftbeforeXskip of the tocloft package to add some whitespace before every section entry. X is replaced by chap, sec, etc. (see documentation).

\usepackage{tocloft}
\setlength{\cftbeforesecskip}{10pt}

beforesectionspace

 
Frankly, it doesn’t look great. Better would be to add whitespace after chapter entries and to keep the sections together. \cftXafterpnum does the trick.

\usepackage{tocloft}
\renewcommand{\cftchapafterpnum}{\vspace{10pt}}

afterchapterspace

 
Much better, but now we get extra whitespace after “Introduction” because this chapter has no sections. Without sections, the whitespace after the previous and before the next chapter creates an uneven picture.

The solution is to “conditionally” add whitespace depending on whether a chapter sections or not. This requires the etoolbox package. It implements functionality to “append” and “prepend” code to other commands. In the example below, I use the “prepend”-command: \preto. Similarly, \appto can be used to “append” something. See the package documentation for more details.

We would like to have additional whitespace before the first section of a chapter. Therefore, before starting a new section we check if the section counter has been reset to 0. If so, we add whitespace to the table of contents using \addtocontents.

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\preto\section{%
  \ifnum\value{section}=0\addtocontents{toc}{\vskip10pt}\fi
}

conditionalafterchapterspace

 
Using the same idea, we could add chapter headings between list of figure entires for a better separation.

\usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries Chapter \thechapter\vskip10pt}}\fi
}

Note: Without loading tocloft chapter headings are indented except for the first.

 
Before:

defaultlof

 
After:

lofchapterheadings

 
And possibly lots of other cool stuff. Let me know your ideas below! 🙂

25 Comments

  1. Jan

    Using tocloft and etoolbox, the header of fancyhdr disappears on the TOC page. Using [title]{tocloft} it returns, but the spacing is like without using tocloft and etoolbox. Any idea?

    Reply

    • Hi Jan,

      I tried to reproduce what you describe, without success. Please send a minimal working example similar to the code below to illustrate your problem. Thanks, Tom.

      \documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{fancyhdr, blindtext}
\usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries Chapter \thechapter\vskip10pt}}\fi
}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\begin{document}
\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\thispagestyle{fancy}}
\tableofcontents\clearpage
\addtocontents{lof}{\protect\thispagestyle{fancy}}
\listoffigures\clearpage
\chapter{Dummy chapter one}
\Blindtext
\begin{figure}[ht]\centering\rule{0.5\textwidth}{0.3\textwidth}\caption{Dummy figure one}\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[ht]\centering\rule{0.5\textwidth}{0.3\textwidth}\caption{Dummy figure two}\end{figure}
\chapter{Dummy chapter two}
\begin{figure}[ht]\centering\rule{0.5\textwidth}{0.3\textwidth}\caption{Dummy figure three}\end{figure}
\begin{figure}[ht]\centering\rule{0.5\textwidth}{0.3\textwidth}\caption{Dummy figure four}\end{figure}
\Blindtext
\end{document}
      Reply

  2. rDuck

    Hi there, excellent guide, however I have been unable to get the chapter headings in list of figures to work while using the chemstyle package, loading order doesn’t seem to matter either. and i cant see any problems in the log file, but the chapters simply disappear when i run this package, do you know why? I included a minimal (non) working example below.

    %!TEX TS-program = lualatex
\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{chemstyle}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries Chapter \thechapter\vskip10pt}}\fi
}

\begin{document}
	\tableofcontents
	\listoffigures
	\chapter{Introduction}
		\section{Background}
			\begin{figure}
				\centering
					\includegraphics[height=23mm]{Test.png}
				\caption{Test}
				\label{Test}
			\end{figure}
\end{document}
    Reply

  3. Reity

    YES, YES AND YES…. thank u… the list of figures changes compiled PERFECTLY… at the first shot… and my thesis was already finished… I just added the commands:

    \usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries Chapter \thechapter\vskip10pt}}\fi
}
    Reply

  4. Amsul

    Thanks for this Tom, I had a quick question, could you tell me instead of just chapter 1 in the list of figures, I want the whole chapter title how I would go about doing that?

    Reply

    • tom

      Hi Amsul,

      Thanks for the question. Here’s how to produce the name of the chapter in addition to the number.

      \documentclass[11pt]{report}
\let\Chaptermark\chaptermark
\def\chaptermark#1{\def\Chaptername{#1}\Chaptermark{#1}}
\usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries Chapter~\thechapter~\Chaptername \vskip10pt}}\fi
}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\listoffigures
\chapter{Some chapter}
\begin{figure}[ht]
	\centering
	\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5\linewidth}
	\caption{Some caption}
	\label{fig:def}
\end{figure}
\end{document}
      Reply

  5. Amsul

    Thanks for the reply Tom. I ran into a small problem, with the “chaptername” ‘s c captialized, it would not work, and kept giving me an error. When I made it smaller case, it compiled However instead of the actual chapter name it just kept giving me chapter 1 chapter. Any ideas as to what might be going on?

    Reply

    • tom

      You might be using a package that conflicts with this code. Also, \chaptername doesn’t work, because it is reserved for ‘Chapter’. Actually, I should have used the command instead of the word (see code below). Did you try with another word for \Chaptername, e.g. \chapterdef?

      \usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\let\Chaptermark\chaptermark
\def\chaptermark#1{\def\chapterdef{#1}\Chaptermark{#1}}

\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries \chaptername~\thechapter~\chapterdef \vskip10pt}}\fi
}

      If this doesn’t work, please provide a minimal working example.

      Thanks, Tom

      Reply

  6. Amsul

    Thanks Tom, I think that might be true, I have way too many packages and renewcommands I had to use. I have had to change a lot of things about the chapter heading so that might be why. I’ll try a few things and if not I will post a minimal working example here. Thanks.

    Reply

      • Amsul

        Tom,

        I tried doing the same thing with tables as you did with figures by changing lof to lot and figure to table in the code, but for some reason my first table in chapter 2 does not show up under chapter but rather by itself. Might you know a reason this is happening?

      • Amsul

        Actually, just realized, it is doing so with the figure as well, figure 2.1 show up above chapter 2. for some reason?

      • tom

        Hi Amsul,

        Might be a package that you load, which causes a conflict. Please provide a minimal working example so I can reproduce the problem. Thanks.

        Here is a basic MWE that works:

        \documentclass{report}
\usepackage{etoolbox, tocloft}
\preto\figure{%
  \ifnum\value{figure}=0\addtocontents{lof}{{\bfseries Chapter \thechapter\vskip10pt}}\fi
}
\preto\table{%
  \ifnum\value{table}=0\addtocontents{lot}{{\bfseries Chapter \thechapter\vskip10pt}}\fi
}
\begin{document}
\listoffigures
\listoftables
\chapter{First}
\chapter{Second}
\begin{figure}[ht]\centering\rule{0.5\textwidth}{0.5\textwidth}\caption{Fig caption}\end{figure}
\begin{table}\centering\begin{tabular}{cc}a&b\\c&d\\\end{tabular}\caption{Tab caption}\end{table}
\end{document}

  7. I have also tried it. It works flawlessly with the table of contents, but It makes weird things with the list of figures and the list of tables. Sometimes “Chapter #” appears after the item it corresponds, and also sometimes “Chapter #” gets printed twice…

    So I’m using it only for the table of contents. Thanks!

    Reply

    • tom

      Would you mind sending a minimal working example to illustrate the issue? I tried and it works for me with figures and tables…

      Reply

  8. MANSI CHAHAL

    Sir, how can I modify the default top margin in table of content page and some other pages like list of figures?

    Reply

  9. Mark Sconce

    How do you increase or control horizontal spacing between section number like 2.1 and section title like Background?

    Reply

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