What is markdown-toc?
The markdown-toc package is a tool for generating a table of contents (TOC) for markdown files. It can automatically create a TOC based on the headings in a markdown document, making it easier to navigate and organize content.
What are markdown-toc's main functionalities?
Generate TOC from Markdown
This feature allows you to generate a table of contents from a markdown string. The code sample demonstrates how to use the markdown-toc package to create a TOC from a markdown string containing headings.
const toc = require('markdown-toc');
const markdown = '# Title\n## Subtitle\n### Sub-subtitle';
const result = toc(markdown).content;
console.log(result);
Insert TOC into Markdown
This feature allows you to insert a generated TOC directly into a markdown document. The code sample shows how to use the insert method to add a TOC to the markdown content.
const toc = require('markdown-toc');
const markdown = '# Title\n## Subtitle\n### Sub-subtitle';
const result = toc.insert(markdown);
console.log(result);
Customizing TOC
This feature provides options to customize the TOC, such as setting the maximum depth of headings to include. The code sample demonstrates how to generate a TOC with a maximum depth of 2.
const toc = require('markdown-toc');
const markdown = '# Title\n## Subtitle\n### Sub-subtitle';
const result = toc(markdown, { maxdepth: 2 }).content;
console.log(result);
Other packages similar to markdown-toc
doctoc
doctoc is a command-line tool that automatically generates a table of contents for markdown files. It is similar to markdown-toc but is more focused on being used as a CLI tool, making it suitable for batch processing of files.
markdown-it-toc-done-right
markdown-it-toc-done-right is a plugin for the markdown-it parser that generates a TOC. It is similar to markdown-toc but is designed to work within the markdown-it ecosystem, providing seamless integration with markdown-it's parsing capabilities.
markdown-toc-generator
markdown-toc-generator is another package for generating TOCs in markdown files. It offers similar functionality to markdown-toc but with a focus on simplicity and ease of use, making it a good choice for users who need basic TOC generation without additional features.
markdown-toc

Generate a markdown TOC (table of contents) with Remarkable.
Table of Contents
(TOC generated by verb using markdown-toc)
Install
Install with npm:
$ npm install --save markdown-toc
CLI
Usage: markdown-toc [options] <input>
input: The Markdown file to parse for table of contents,
or "-" to read from stdin.
-i: Edit the <input> file directly, injecting the TOC at <!-- toc -->
(Without this flag, the default is to print the TOC to stdout.)
--json: Print the TOC in JSON format
--append: Append a string to the end of the TOC
--bullets: Bullets to use for items in the generated TOC
(Supports multiple bullets: --bullets "*" --bullets "-" --bullets "+")
(Default is "*".)
--maxdepth: Use headings whose depth is at most maxdepth
(Default is 6.)
--no-firsth1: Include the first h1-level heading in a file
--no-stripHeadingTags: Do not strip extraneous HTML tags from heading
text before slugifying
Highlights
Features
- Can optionally be used as a remarkable plugin
- Returns an object with the rendered TOC (on
content
), as well as a json
property with the raw TOC object, so you can generate your own TOC using templates or however you want
- Works with repeated headings
- Uses sane defaults, so no customization is necessary, but you can if you need to.
- filter out headings you don't want
- Improve the headings you do want
- Use a custom slugify function to change how links are created
Safe!
- Won't mangle markdown in code examples in gfm code blocks that other TOC generators mistake as being actual headings (this happens when markdown headings are show in examples, meaning they arent' actually headings that should be in the toc. Also happens with yaml and coffee-script comments, or any comments that use
#
)
- Won't mangle front-matter, or mistake front-matter properties for headings like other TOC generators
Usage
var toc = require('markdown-toc');
toc('# One\n\n# Two').content;
To allow customization of the output, an object is returned with the following properties:
content
{String}: The generated table of contents. Unless you want to customize rendering, this is all you need.
highest
{Number}: The highest level heading found. This is used to adjust indentation.
tokens
{Array}: Headings tokens that can be used for custom rendering
API
toc.plugin
Use as a remarkable plugin.
var Remarkable = require('remarkable');
var toc = require('markdown-toc');
function render(str, options) {
return new Remarkable()
.use(toc.plugin(options))
.render(str);
}
Usage example
var results = render('# AAA\n# BBB\n# CCC\nfoo\nbar\nbaz');
Results in:
- [AAA](#aaa)
- [BBB](#bbb)
- [CCC](#ccc)
toc.json
Object for creating a custom TOC.
toc('# AAA\n## BBB\n### CCC\nfoo').json;
[ { content: 'AAA', slug: 'aaa', lvl: 1 },
{ content: 'BBB', slug: 'bbb', lvl: 2 },
{ content: 'CCC', slug: 'ccc', lvl: 3 } ]
toc.insert
Insert a table of contents immediately after an opening <!-- toc -->
code comment, or replace an existing TOC if both an opening comment and a closing comment (<!-- tocstop -->
) are found.
(This strategy works well since code comments in markdown are hidden when viewed as HTML, like when viewing a README on GitHub README for example).
Example
<!-- toc -->
- old toc 1
- old toc 2
- old toc 3
<!-- tocstop -->
## abc
This is a b c.
## xyz
This is x y z.
Would result in something like:
<!-- toc -->
- [abc](#abc)
- [xyz](#xyz)
<!-- tocstop -->
## abc
This is a b c.
## xyz
This is x y z.
Utility functions
As a convenience to folks who wants to create a custom TOC, markdown-toc's internal utility methods are exposed:
var toc = require('markdown-toc');
toc.bullets()
: render a bullet list from an array of tokens
toc.linkify()
: linking a heading content
string
toc.slugify()
: slugify a heading content
string
toc.strip()
: strip words or characters from a heading content
string
Example
var result = toc('# AAA\n## BBB\n### CCC\nfoo');
var str = '';
result.json.forEach(function(heading) {
str += toc.linkify(heading.content);
});
Options
options.append
Append a string to the end of the TOC.
toc(str, {append: '\n_(TOC generated by Verb)_'});
options.filter
Type: Function
Default: undefined
Params:
str
{String} the actual heading string
ele
{Objecct} object of heading tokens
arr
{Array} all of the headings objects
Example
From time to time, we might get junk like this in our TOC.
[.aaa([foo], ...) another bad heading](#-aaa--foo--------another-bad-heading)
Unless you like that kind of thing, you might want to filter these bad headings out.
function removeJunk(str, ele, arr) {
return str.indexOf('...') === -1;
}
var result = toc(str, {filter: removeJunk});
options.slugify
Type: Function
Default: Basic non-word character replacement.
Example
var str = toc('# Some Article', {slugify: require('uslug')});
options.bullets
Type: String|Array
Default: *
The bullet to use for each item in the generated TOC. If passed as an array (['*', '-', '+']
), the bullet point strings will be used based on the header depth.
options.maxdepth
Type: Number
Default: 6
Use headings whose depth is at most maxdepth.
options.firsth1
Type: Boolean
Default: true
Exclude the first h1-level heading in a file. For example, this prevents the first heading in a README from showing up in the TOC.
options.stripHeadingTags
Type: Boolean
Default: true
Strip extraneous HTML tags from heading text before slugifying. This is similar to GitHub markdown behavior.
About
Related projects
Contributing
Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.
Contributors
Building docs
(This project's readme.md is generated by verb, please don't edit the readme directly. Any changes to the readme must be made in the .verb.md readme template.)
To generate the readme, run the following command:
$ npm install -g verbose/verb
Running tests
Running and reviewing unit tests is a great way to get familiarized with a library and its API. You can install dependencies and run tests with the following command:
$ npm install && npm test
Author
Jon Schlinkert
License
Copyright © 2017, Jon Schlinkert.
Released under the MIT License.
This file was generated by verb-generate-readme, v0.6.0, on September 19, 2017.