Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)

Subject: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 04:58 PM

I want Windows 7 to create a Table of Contents (titles listed alphabetically) for my song lyrics folder. There must be an easy way, but I can't find it. Please help!

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 05:01 PM

P.S. I also want it to tell me how many songs there are in the folder.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: DMcG
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 05:24 PM

Why do you think there must be an easy way to do it?   :)


Depending what exactly you are after the easiest way might be to open a command window from the start menu and type

Dir /b > list.text

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: GUEST,Ellen Vannin
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 05:37 PM

Try creating a table in Word, hide the borders so it looks like an ordinary list and use the table stats to see how many rows there are.
I use this for cataloguing songs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: GUEST,Ellen Vannin
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 05:38 PM

. . . and the table will be sortable so you don't have to enter the songs in alpha order.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: Anne Lister
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 06:44 PM

To do it the "easy" way you need to work on a master document and insert the songs ... Word will then create a Table of Contents if you follow the right menus. Not easy to explain in a short message.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 06:59 PM

You'd be better off with Access or Excel if you want to know how many and to alphabetize (if you enter them in any order then you want the list to be able to reorder itself). Word will work for the table, but it won't process the list for you in the way a database or spreadsheet can.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 07:02 PM

This might do what you want -
Dir Print

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: Tangledwood
Date: 04 Oct 15 - 07:06 PM

Oops, I wasn't logged in.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Oct 15 - 01:16 AM

It seems I have not been clear. Let me try again:

I'm using Windows 7. In My Documents, I have a folder that contains all the songs my band has ever done, as Word documents. They are listed by title, in alphabetical order because that's how Windows organizes folders.

I want to create a Table of Contents - still alphabetized - that lists all the song titles as a .doc or .txt. And I want it to tell me how many items there are, because I can't count that far.

There must be a way to get Windows to do this without downloading external programs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Oct 15 - 02:13 AM

The 'dir' post will do that. All you need to to is precede it by

Cd PathTomusicfolder

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Oct 15 - 02:32 AM

I should say that people have been moaning about the inability to so this since windows 3.1 to my knowledge.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 05 Oct 15 - 03:51 AM

1. Open a command prompt

2. Type

cd

add a blank, add the complete path of your "My Documents" folder in quotes, something like (I think)

cd "\Documents and Settings\michaelr\My Documents"

finish with the Return key; make sure that no error message appears.

3. Type

dir /b > ListOfSongs.txt

finish with the Return key.

4. Type e.g.

notepad ListOfSongs.txt

finish with the Return key.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: ripov
Date: 05 Oct 15 - 12:48 PM

I've tried both the command line approach and the Microsoft "printdir" function, and neither is particularly user friendly, nor do they produce output convenient to reuse.
So here in my dropbox is "one I made earlier", a bit clonky, but it works (at least on my win7 machine); counts and lists files in a folder , and counts those with specific extensions (although not in the print-out yet). Home made, so the usual disclaimers!
Originally written in Blitz Basic - I think it may need Microsoft DX9 to be installed before it will run.
Just copy into the directory you want to catalogue - or preferably a copy of the directory, until you're sure it works - and click.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: ripov
Date: 05 Oct 15 - 12:51 PM

Output is a txt file "Content_List.txt" in the same directory. The comma seperated list can be copied and pasted into a spreadsheetm if needed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: michaelr
Date: 06 Oct 15 - 06:58 PM

Ripov, your program was tagged as a virus and removed immediately by my antivirus program.

Grishka, could you try again, please? I'm not getting anywhere with that command prompt. The file path is CD:\Documents and Settings\Michael\My Documents\Greenhouse\GH Songbook. When I type in the other things you said to, it keeps reverting back to that file path. Driving me nuts!

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: ripov
Date: 06 Oct 15 - 08:25 PM

Michaelr - sorry about that - I did try!
If you use the microsoft link - (about 1 1/2 screens down there's a "download" link in the "fix it for me" section - the "do it yourself approach " is very involved, and I suffer, like you, from the problem of the command prompt reverting to C:\), this works, at least on my machine, but it uses your system printer. If you want the output on file rather than paper, so you can edit it, you will need something like the "Doro" PDF Printer, and temporarily set it as your default printer. You can't edit the pdf but you can block and copy it into notepad or a word processor programme.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 07 Oct 15 - 06:59 AM

I wasn't aware of DirPrint. I've just installed it and it works a treat. It can not only print (including "printing" to a PDF file if you have one of the utilities that does that) but also output a text file, which seems to be what michaelr needs, as that text file can then be loaded into whatever other application you like, such as Word, Excel or LibreOffice.

BTW michaelr, apropos "... in alphabetical order because that's how Windows organizes folders": Windows Explorer offers you a wide choice of sort order. If you go View > Details and click any of the column headings the display is sorted by that attribute. If the headings don't include the particular attribute you want, right click and you're offered loads more possible columns.

Subject: RE: Tech: Table of Contents (Windows)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 15 - 07:13 AM

michealr: it will 'keep reverting to that path', because the cmd program outputs a prompt showing where you are in the directory. Grishka's instructions should work for most systems and would only be a problem as far as I can see if you have the disks set up in a fairly sophisticated way.

When you look at the folder in indows where the songs are, does the file 'ListOfSongs.txt' exist (the .txt part may be hidden)