How can I create an Asciidoc table of contents from external files? - asciidoc

Question

The Asciidoc :toc: command creates a nicely formatted table of contents from the headings in the document:
:toc:
= Part 1
= Part 2
= Part 3
But I want my table of contents to link to other documents, instead of pulling from the document itself:
link:part1.adoc[Part 1]
link:part2.adoc[Part 2]
link:part3.adoc[Part 3]
Is there a way to create a TOC from links to other files? If not, what styles/blocks/whatever can I use to mimic the style of the TOC as closely as possible?

Answer 1

Yes, however, it may not behave the way you intend.
= Document
:toc:
== link:part1.adoc[Part 1]
== link:part2.adoc[Part 2]
== link:part3.adoc[Part 3]
That produces a table of contents, but its links point to the headings in the same file: that's what the :toc: is for. The headings themselves are links to the other documents.
You can create your own list, but to approximate the styling of the on-page TOC, you need to create a docinfo.html file containing the CSS you'd like to use:
<style>
.mytoc ul {
list-style-type: none;
margin-left: 0;
font-family: sans-serif;
}
.mytoc li {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
</style>
and specify that you want to use the docinfo file:
= Document
:docinfo: shared
[.mytoc]
== Table of Contents
* link:part1.adoc[Part 1]
* link:part2.adoc[Part 2]
* link:part3.adoc[Part 3]
Note that the styles I included aren't a comprehensive recreation of the the on-page TOC's styles, but hopefully they are enough to show you the way.
See https://asciidoctor.org/docs/user-manual/#docinfo-file for more information on docinfo files.