FlexiTOC – Flexible Table of Contents

Install it, and every post that needs a table of contents gets one. That is the whole setup.

FlexiTOC reads the final rendered page — Gutenberg blocks, classic content, shortcode output — finds the headings, gives them stable anchor links, and builds the navigation in one pass. Because the TOC and the anchors come from the same pass, they cannot drift apart: no orphaned links, no “TOC shows a heading I deleted”, no anchors pointing nowhere.

Authors stay in control without ever maintaining a list:

• Every Heading block gets a simple choice — include, exclude, or just follow the site’s level defaults. Force one important H5 into the TOC, or drop a noisy H2 out, without touching global settings.
• Give any heading a shorter TOC-only label (“Getting started with the plugin” can appear as just “Getting started”). The visible heading never changes.
• Manage every heading from one place: the FlexiTOC Headings panel in the editor sidebar lists them all with toggles, labels, search, and bulk actions.
• Choices are stored on the heading itself — rename it, move it, drag it around: your curation survives, because there is nothing to re-match.

One engine, three doors

However you place it, the same engine renders it:

• Automatic – pick position and post types once in Settings. Each post can override the position, or opt out, in the FlexiTOC Display panel.
• Block – put the FlexiTOC block exactly where you want it: in the post, in a sidebar, in a Site Editor template (it follows the post it sits next to, including inside a Query Loop). Sticky, “highlight current section”, and a flat (non-indented) heading hierarchy make it a proper documentation sidebar.
• Shortcode – [flexitoc] for classic content and page builders.

Looks native, behaves politely

• Inherits your theme’s colors and typography — including dark themes. Three style presets (Default, Boxed, Minimal) plus the native block color, border, spacing and typography controls when you want more.
• Clean, accessible markup: a real nav landmark, native details collapsing (no JS), aria-current on the active link, reduced-motion respected.
• Loads nothing on pages without a TOC. The optional scroll-spy script is under 1 KB.
• Never rewrites your stored content — anchors are added at render time with WordPress’s HTML API. Deactivate the plugin and your content is exactly as it was.
• A “Fixed header offset” setting keeps anchors, the sticky block and the section highlight clear of fixed headers.
• Hidden headings (hidden, aria-hidden) are ignored automatically.

For developers and page builders

• Utility classes work anywhere, on the heading or a wrapper: flexitoc-include, flexitoc-exclude (or no-toc) on headings or their containers; flexitoc-ignore on a container to skip everything inside it.
• Filters: flexitoc_headings (the list an instance will show), flexitoc_html (final markup), flexitoc_settings (effective settings).
• Existing heading ids are always respected, and generated ids never collide with any id already in the document.