How to change spaces between items in Table of Contents

There are so many options... without further information, one possible option would be to use the setspace package and one of its commands of environments; for example,

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{setspace}

\begin{document}

\doublespacing
\tableofcontents
\singlespacing

\chapter{Test Chapter One}
\section{Test Section One One}
\section{Test Section One Two}
\chapter{Test Chapter Two}
\section{Test Section Two One}
\section{Test Section Two Two}

\end{document}

enter image description here

This approach will increase evenly the space between all sectional units. The following three options allow you to control separately the spacing for each group of sectional units.

Another option would be to use the tocloft package and redefine the \cftXafterpnum family of commands:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{tocloft}

\renewcommand\cftchapafterpnum{\vskip10pt}
\renewcommand\cftsecafterpnum{\vskip15pt}

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\chapter{Test Chapter One}
\section{Test Section One One}
\section{Test Section One Two}
\chapter{Test Chapter Two}
\section{Test Section Two One}
\section{Test Section Two Two}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Yet another option, this time using the etoolbox package to patch the sectional units commands to add vertical space to the ToC:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\makeatletter
\pretocmd{\chapter}{\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\addvspace{15\p@}}}{}{}
\pretocmd{\section}{\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\addvspace{5\p@}}}{}{}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\chapter{Test Chapter One}
\section{Test Section One One}
\section{Test Section One Two}
\chapter{Test Chapter Two}
\section{Test Section Two One}
\section{Test Section Two Two}

\end{document}

enter image description here

A fourth option not requiring any packages would be to redefine the \chapter and \section commands as implemented in the used document class to add the vertical space to the ToC; an example with report:

\documentclass{report}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand\chapter{\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\addvspace{5\p@}}%
  \if@openright\cleardoublepage\else\clearpage\fi
  \thispagestyle{plain}%
  \global\@topnum\z@
  \@afterindentfalse
  \secdef\@chapter\@schapter}
\renewcommand\section{\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\addvspace{20\p@}}%
  \@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%
  {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
  {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
  {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\chapter{Test Chapter One}
\section{Test Section One}
\section{Test Section Two}
\chapter{Test Chapter One}
\section{Test Section One}
\section{Test Section Two}

\end{document}

enter image description here


While the other suggestions so far allow increasing the line spacing of the Table of Contents, it seems they don't allow decreasing it, for example to fit a ToC on one page.

A simple

\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{0.75}\normalsize
\tableofcontents
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.0}\normalsize

will allow setting any line spacing.

It might be necessary to find out what your baselinestretch size is by default as the style seems to set this.


Using tocloft, you can also add the following in your preamble to add spacing before a section entry:

\usepackage{tocloft}

\setlength{\cftbeforesecskip}{6pt}

This complements Gonzalo's Answer in where he shows how to add spacing after a section entry: that can be undesirable in case you have subsections following a section. The tocloft's manual has many other options that can be used to manipulate other types of entries in the TOC.

Tags:

Line Spacing

Table Of Contents

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