How to Change Table of Contents Placement in Quarto Book

[TomBener]

I’m working on a Quarto thesis book project and need to place the Table of Contents (TOC) after the preface content, which is written in index.qmd (preface, acknowledgements, abstract etc.). I found a solution for PDF-only using LaTeX customization (from this Stack Overflow question), but this approach requires to move contents in index.qmd to LaTeX, which is not compatible with other formats, such as HTML and DOCX.

What is the best approach to achieve this consistent TOC placement for multiple formats?

Thank you!

[mcanouil]

Use toc-location as described in the documentation.
The reference pages are intended to be as exhaustive as possible regarding the options for the main formats.
It's a good place to start looking before going a bit randomly on the Internet.

If the option does not fit your needs, then it's going to be very tricky to achieve what you want and more advanced (if even possible).

[TomBener]

I've tried template and template partials. But the order of the toc and body is fixed in the template:

$if(toc)$
$if(toc-title)$
\renewcommand*\contentsname{$toc-title$}
$endif$
$if(beamer)$
\begin{frame}[allowframebreaks]
$if(toc-title)$
  \frametitle{$toc-title$}
$endif$
  \tableofcontents[hideallsubsections]
\end{frame}
$else$
{
$if(colorlinks)$
\hypersetup{linkcolor=$if(toccolor)$$toccolor$$else$$endif$}
$endif$
\setcounter{tocdepth}{$toc-depth$}
\tableofcontents
}
$endif$
$endif$
$if(lof)$
\listoffigures
$endif$
$if(lot)$
\listoftables
$endif$
$if(linestretch)$
\setstretch{$linestretch$}
$endif$
$if(has-frontmatter)$
\mainmatter
$endif$
$body$

It seems the best way is by post-processing the LaTeX code.

[mcanouil]

Modify the template or the partial and change the order, and use that modified version.
That's the whole point of template/partials, i.e., being able to replace everything or only parts of the default.

[TomBener]

$body$ Represents everything converted from Markdown, which includes preface, acknowledgements, abstract and subsequent chapters. How can I insert toc between them by changing the template?

[mcanouil]

Use YAML or LUA filter to have a "preface" content that you can place where you want in your template.
There is also the "before-body.tex()" partial.

For example, there is a LUA that allow to write the abstract as a section https://github.com/pandoc-ext/abstract-section

[TomBener]

@mcanouil Thanks!

[TomBener]

I came up with an easy method to adjust the order of TOC in LaTeX:

1. set toc: false in _quarto.yml for the PDF format.
2. In index.qmd, write the raw LaTeX code for printing TOC after the preface. For example:

# Praface {-}

# Acknowledgements {-}

# Abstract {-}

```{=latex}
\clearpage
{
\hypersetup{linkcolor=blue}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}
\tableofcontents
}
```

The generated LaTeX code would be:

\bookmarksetup{startatroot}

\chapter*{Praface}\label{praface}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Praface}

\markboth{Praface}{Praface}

\bookmarksetup{startatroot}

\chapter*{Acknowledgements}\label{acknowledgements}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Acknowledgements}

\markboth{Acknowledgements}{Acknowledgements}

\bookmarksetup{startatroot}

\chapter*{Abstract}\label{abstract}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Abstract}

\markboth{Abstract}{Abstract}

\clearpage
{
\hypersetup{linkcolor=blue}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}
\tableofcontents
}