For long-form blog posts or any detailed article having a useful table of contents is worth its weight in gold. It helps visitors get a quick overview of the article organization and jump to the parts they are most interested in.
In addition to helping users, we have suspicions Google is a big fan of the table of contents and having one is likely to help with ranking. More importantly, having a TOC just makes for a better experience.
Looking for good TOC examples? Check out our post on the best blog post table of contents examples We searched the web for inspirational sites to refer to when we are working on a new project.
Below are the WordPress Table of Content Plugins we were able to find. Different plugins work better for different situations. In addition to the details for each plugin, we have added our personal experience and recommendations.
Table of Contents
Table of Content Plugins Types
While researching this list the Table of Content Plugins fell into four different groups.
- Full-Featured Plugins
- Shortcode Plugins
- Page Builder Block Plugins
- Retired or Inactive Plugins
Full-Featured Plugins
The full-featured plugins can stand on their own and will have global configuration settings as well as per post configuration settings. These settings can be located in the WP Admin menu as well as on the individual posts
Pros: Full Featured, Easy to Use, Customizable styling, Most likely what you are looking for.
Cons: might be more than you need if you need just one TOC, could be many areas to configure.
Shortcode Plugins
Shortcode plugins are just that. You add a bit of code to the post to get the Table of Contents to display. A few of the shortcode plugins have overrides which allow you to customize the display of the plugin.
Pros: Quick Easy to use, lightweight code.
Cons: You have to add them to every page and you have to remember and manually apply the different settings
Page Builder Blocks Plugins
The third group of plugins is page builder blocks. These will be specific to different page builders. Table of Content Blocks that work in Elementor, Divi, or Visual Composer. It a block works in Divi then it only works in Divi and is most likely not cross page builder compatible.
Pros: Work specifically with your page builder
Cons: If you are not using that page builder on your site it is not worth installing the page builder just to get the table of contents plugin.
Full-Featured Plugin vs Shortcode Plugin.
Retired or Inactive Plugins
We also added the “Retired or Inactive” Group Type. During our research, we found a few plugins that are not actively maintained. These plugins can still have 100,000 or more active installs and the most recent up 3 or 4 years ago.
This list will be included at the bottom of the page. They are primarily there to create a comprehensive Table of Content Plugin and inform people that the projects are no longer active and not a good choice for their website.
Easy Table of Contents
If you want to include a table of contents on multiple pages and blog posts this is most likely the best choice.
- Developer: Steven A. Zahm (shazahm1)
- Easy Table of Contents in the WordPress Plugin Directory
- Github Project Page for Easy Table of Contents
- Plugin Website Page: None
- Number of Installs: 100,000+ (October 2019)
- Free Only Version
This is a fork the Table of Contents Plus by Michael Tran. Table of Contents plus is no longer being actively developed.
This is a pretty solid easy to use TOC plugin.
Easy to install. easy to configure The plugin places a clean grey and black table of contents box at the top of the post
Table of Contents by Creative Minds
Creative Minds has a full-featured Table of Contents plugin. It installs as a plugin and has fully developed settings. Additionally they have a free and paid version. The Paid Version is $29 for two sites or $59 for 5 sites.
- Developer: Creative Minds
- TOC Plugin by Creative Minds
- TOC Plugin at the WP Plugin Directory
- Number of Installs: 1,000+ (October 2019)
- Free and Paid Versions
Free Version
Paid Version
- Define TOC by tag, class and id
- Collapse TOC on page load
- Automatically create TOC for all pages
- Define TOC using unique tags on each post or page
- Back to the top button
- Insert TOC in anywhere on a post or page using shortcode
- Easily style the navigation table
- Support for Child Pages
- Display TOC as a widget in the the sidebar
- Next Page Support
- Display TOC in one or two columns
- Floating Table of Contents
- Support multiple pages TOC
To upgrade from Free to Pro, you will need to uninstall Free and then install the paid plugin.
LuckyWP Table of Contents
If you want to include a table of contents on multiple pages and blog posts this is most likely the best choice.
- Developer: LuckyWP
- Plugin Website: https://theluckywp.com/product/table-of-contents/
- WordPress Plugin Directory URL: https://wordpress.org/plugins/luckywp-table-of-contents/
- Number of Installs: 9,000+ (October 2019)
- Free Only Version
LuckyWP Table of Contents is an independent product and is not a fork of any other TOC plugin.
This is a pretty solid easy to use TOC plugin.
Easy to install. easy to configure The plugin places a clean grey and black table of contents box at the top of the post
WP Joli Table of Contents
This is a brand new plugin as of October 2019.
- Developer: WP Joli
- Joli Plugin Website: https://wpjoli.com/joli-table-of-contents/
- Joli Table of Contents at the WordPress Plugin Directory
- Number of Installs: Less than 10 (October 2019)
- Free and Paid Versions
Shortcode Plugins
Simple TOC
If you want to include a table of contents on multiple pages and blog posts this is most likely the best choice.
- Developer: Steven A. Zahm
- Plugin Website: None
- WordPress Plugin Directory URL: https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-table-of-contents
- Number of Installs: 100,000+ (October 2019)
This is a fork the Table of Contents Plus by Michael Tran. Table of Contents plus is no longer being actively developed.
This is a pretty solid easy to use TOC plugin.
Easy to install. easy to configure The plugin places a clean grey and black table of contents box at the top of the post
f(x) TOC
As of October 2019, this plugin is NOT actively developed. If this changes we will update the post.
This plugin will allow you to add a shortcode to your post and then All H1 – H6 elements will be used to create a table of contents
- Developer: David Chandra Purnama
- Plugin Website: None
- WordPress Plugin Directory URL: https://wordpress.org/plugins/fx-toc/
- GitHub: https://github.com/turtlepod/fx-toc
- Number of Installs: 900+ (October 2019)
- Last Development 2016
- Free Version Only
There are some overrides which allow you to change the Title, make the list UL or OL and set the list depth.
Unless you absolutely need this plugin, I would go with another option. This plugin and code are pretty out of date.
Fixed TOC
- Developer: WPHigh
- Fixed TOC Plugin at Code Canyon
- WordPress Plugin Directory URL:
- Number of Installs: 1,000+ (October 2019)
Elementor Pro Table of Content Block
Released in December of 2019 Elementor Pro now has an Official Pro Table of Contents Widget (block) available. If you are using elementor, then upgrading to the pro version is very worthwhile.
The widget was released in Elementor 2.8, here is a post announcing the new Elementor Pro Table of Contents Widget.
Features include:
- Flexible Design
- Ability to select which heading tags are included in the table of contents
- Sticky Highlights
- Select the list style
- Minimized display for mobile and tablet
- Determine when and where it is displayed
- SEO Rich Snippets
To get this block you will need to upgrade to Elementor Pro. If you have not already done so then it is a very functional and useful upgrade and one worth considering.
Ultimate Addons for Elementor Table of Content Block
Ultimate Addons from Elementor had a Table of Content Block. This is a paid solution and part of a 35+ block pack.
- Developer: Brainstorm Force
- https://uaelementor.com/widgets/table-of-contents/
it is easy to use, in Elementor you just drag the block to your page and then add which headings you want to have added to the table of contents.
Additional included features: Select which list style you want, enable smooth scroll, exclude particular headings, make the table of contents collapsible and you can add a scroll to the top button.
If you are looking for a Table of Contents plugin to include on just a few pages and then this is a good solution. It becomes an even better solution if you like many of the other blocks offered in the Ultimate Addons Pack for Elementor.
Retired and Inactive Plugins
We thought it would be helpful to include some of the older or retired projects. People are still searching for them and sometimes they projects come to a stop and then are brought back to like by being forked by a new developer.
Table of Contents Plus - Retired
This plugin is no longer actively developed. If you want to include a table of contents on multiple pages and blog posts this is most likely the best choice.
- Developer: Steven A. Zahm
- Plugin Website: None
- WordPress Plugin Directory URL: https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-table-of-contents
- Number of Installs: 100,000+ (October 2019)
This is a fork the Table of Contents Plus by Michael Tran. Table of Contents plus is no longer being actively developed.
This is a pretty solid easy to use TOC plugin.
Easy to install. easy to configure The plugin places a clean grey and black table of contents box at the top of the post
Conclusion
As you can see there are quite a few plugin and styles of plugins that can be used to create a good Table of Contents.
Additional Resources
Additional Table of Contents Resources
- WP Hosting Reviews: 10 Website and Blog Table of Contents Examples
- CMinds: 5 best table contents wordpress plugins This list is created by Creative Minds so it makes sense they list their extension at the top
- WP Beginner: How to Create a Table of Content in WordPress Posts and Pages
- WP Engine: How to Create a Table of Contents in WordPress
- Road to Blogging: Best WP Table of Content Plugins
Steven Johnson, a WP Hosting Reviews senior editor, works from Atlanta and covers all things related to WordPress and Hosting.
He graduated from Georgia Tech in Chemical Engineering, has managed hosting companies and now builds WordPress and Joomla Websites for small to medium companies full time.
