Template:TOC left/doc

Purpose

{{TOC left}} forces the auto-generated "Table of Contents" for an article to appear floated to the left side of the page (as seen left), in order to improve article layout.

Usage

Insert {{TOC left}} at the point in the article where you want the top of the Table of Contents box to appear. Use with {{clear}} or {{clear left}} to prevent e.g. image collisions. To remove the small default margin/padding included above the box, set |top=0 (or, to customize it, use |top=(a value)).

Cautions

Do not use this template to just force word wrap around the TOC, as this is an inappropriate method of achieving this. Instead add a CSS class to your current skin's .css file, which will apply site wide. Go to Special:Mypage/skin.css, which redirects to your current skin's CSS file.

Do not place this template so that the TOC aligns with a large image or infobox; this breaks the layout on narrow screens (even users with screens as wide as 1024px wide can have problems). Also, a TOC that crosses a section division is probably a poor idea, if that can be avoided.

Unless the section in which the {{TOC left}} is placed is long enough, the result may well be undesirable. Note particularly that if the TOC is floated left of a bulleted list, the bullets will be hidden.

It should only be used in cases where the TOC gets in the way of other content or is detrimental to the layout of the page; it should not simply be used for aesthetics since it tampers with the standard appearance of articles. See w:Help:Section#Floating the TOC for further guidelines.

See also

• {{TOC right}}

{{TOC left}} forces the auto-generated "Table of Contents" for an article to appear floated to the left side of the page (as seen left), in order to improve article layout.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Clear	clear	Sets the CSS clear property, which forces this float underneath the side specified with this attribute. So, clear=left (which is the default) will place the element after all the right floating elements before it. Options are left, right, both, or none.	String	optional
Limit	limit	Limits the depth of subheadings shown. For instance using limit=4 will hide the fourth level and deeper subheadings in the hierarchy. And limit=2 will hide all subheadings leaving only the main headings. This works by hiding the lower levels with CSS	Number	optional
Width	width 1	Overrides the CSS width	Unknown	optional
Top spacing	top	no description	Unknown	optional