How to hide the table of content's heading?

Question

Is there any chance to hide the "Table of contents" heading that \tableofcontents generates?

If figured that \renewcommand\contentsname{} works (it sets the title to "", an empty string), but it does not remove the heading completely - the space is still blocked.

Answer 1

If you are using the article class you can find the definition of \tableofcontents in the article.cls file:

\newcommand\tableofcontents{%
    \section*{\contentsname
        \@mkboth{%
           \MakeUppercase\contentsname}{\MakeUppercase\contentsname}}%
    \@starttoc{toc}%
    }

Now you can just remove the part where \section* is defined:

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\renewcommand\tableofcontents{%
    \@starttoc{toc}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{test}
\section{test2}
\end{document}

Answer 2

If you want no TOC, but still want the "sidebar" created by hyperref you may do this:

\documentclass{...}
...
\usepackage{hyperref}

\begin{document}
\newsavebox{\hidden}\sbox{\hidden}{\vbox{\tablefocontents}}

<code>
\end{document}