Latex Table of Contents Links to Wrong Section

Question

I have a section followed by a table of contents like so:

\section{Section1}
ABC.

\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Table of Contents}
\tableofcontents
\newpage
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{List of Figures}
\listoffigures
\newpage

\section{Section2}
DEF.
\section{Section3}
GHI.

My issue is that the "Table of Contents" and "List of Figures" entries in the table of contents link (in the generated pdf) to the wrong place in the file. They both link to the first section section on page 1. The entry in the table is correct (TOC says page 2 and LOF says page 3), but the link goes to the wrong place.

May be, the preamble etc. can be added so its easy to compile for others. — hola, Oct 02 '20 at 02:49

Noah · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-24T16:39:08.227

34

You'll need to use the \phantomsection command:

\section{Section1}
ABC.
\phantomsection
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Table of Contents}
\tableofcontents
\newpage
\phantomsection
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{List of Figures}
\listoffigures
\newpage

\section{Section2}
DEF.
\section{Section3}
GHI.

See the hyperref manual.

edited Apr 24 '09 at 16:39

answered Apr 24 '09 at 16:23

Noah

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This only works as long as the table of contents and the list of figures don't span more than a single page. Otherwise, the links will point to the last page of the listings. – Tormod Fjeldskår Apr 24 '09 at 16:29
2

I've suggested a different solution that should work either way. – Noah Apr 24 '09 at 16:39
I had to add `\providecommand\phantomsection{}` to my preamble. – Yigit Alparslan Jan 31 '21 at 02:17
I can confirm that, as @Noah said, the references still work as expected even when the lists span more than a single page. – s-gbz Nov 05 '21 at 08:59

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 04 '09 at 20:12

2

If you're doing this for the bibliography, list of tables or list of figures,

\usepackage[nottoc]{tocbibind}

should fix it, without the wrong-page problems. Otherwise, I havent come across a better solution than \phantomsection with \addcontentsline.

answered Aug 04 '09 at 20:12

Paul Biggar

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 23 '09 at 15:56

0

This behavior is due to the fact that \tableofcontents inserts a page break before writing the contents. Hence, your PDF bookmark will point to the page before. Depending on your document class, you can manually insert a number of \newpage commands to keep \tableofcontents from adding another. One or two should be sufficient.

I know, it is a hacky solution, and there might exist a package to solve the problem, but this is how I work around the problem.

answered Apr 23 '09 at 15:56

Tormod Fjeldskår

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That didn't work, I added 1-3 new pages and it still links to the beginning of the previous section. I did the compile twice. – Verhogen Apr 24 '09 at 14:44

Latex Table of Contents Links to Wrong Section

3 Answers3

Linked