A table of contents at the top of a long post is useful for about four seconds.
Making it stick keeps the outline beside the reader the whole way down, so they can jump sections without scrolling back.
For every Table of Contents setting in one place, see the Table of Contents block guide.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro — the Table of Contents block is part of Nexter Blocks Pro.
- Block to enable: Table of Contents, switched on under Nexter > Blocks in your WordPress dashboard.
- Real headings on the page: the list is built from your H1–H6 blocks, so text that only looks like a heading will not appear.
Steps
- Add the Table of Contents block to your post or page and click Design from Scratch.
- In the Layout panel, pick a List Type — UL for bullets or OL for numbers — and a Style.
- Put the block where it can stay visible — usually a narrow column beside your content, with the article in the wider column.
- In the Layout panel, switch Position Fixed on.
- Leave Offset empty to start. Set a number only if you want the list to scroll away with the page for a while before it sticks.
- Publish and scroll the page to check it holds its place.
There are two fields labelled Offset in the Layout panel and they do different jobs: the one under Smooth Scroll is meant to shift where a click lands, and the one under Position Fixed sets how far down the page the list starts sticking.
How It Behaves
- Before the reader scrolls, the block sits in the page like any other. Once they scroll past it, it gains the class
is-position-fixedand holds at the top of the screen — measured asposition: sticky; top: 0. - Offset is a starting point, not a gap. It is how far the reader must scroll before the list sticks. Measured: empty sticks by 200 pixels, 300 between 200 and 400, and 800 between 700 and 1000.
- Whatever Offset you set, the stuck list sits at the very top of the screen. The number does not push it down — every value measured gave
top: 0. - It stays inside its own column, so it stops when that column ends rather than following forever.
Limitations
- Pro only.
- A list pinned to the top of the screen can sit under a sticky site header. If the two overlap, the usual fix is to make the header non-sticky on those templates.
- There is no setting for a gap between the top of the screen and the stuck list.
- On a phone a pinned list eats a lot of a small screen — pair it with a collapsible list so readers can fold it away.
- One per page. With two Table of Contents blocks on the same page only the first one is filled in — the second stays empty. This was measured on the front end.
Troubleshooting
It scrolls away instead of sticking
Either Position Fixed is off, or the block is in a column that ends early — a sticky element cannot outlive its container. Give the column the full height of the article.
It only sticks much further down the page
Offset has a large number in it. Clear the field to have it stick as soon as the reader scrolls past.
It is hidden behind my site header
The stuck list always sits at the top of the screen, so a sticky header will cover it. Turn the sticky header off on these templates, or move the list into a column that starts lower down.
