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R
rexsacrorum
Inspiring
January 3, 2021
Answered

Table of Contents missing paragraph styles

  • January 3, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 2558 views

Hi, I'm trying to create a table of contents but InDesign is not picking up on all the paragraph styles throughout the book.

 

Here are the documents in the book panel:

 

And here are my TOC settings:

 

Each of the "book 1/2/3/4", "introduction", and "acknowledgements" documents should have many instances of these paragraph styles, but when I generate the TOC all I get is this:

 

 

One lonely instance in the acknowledgements.

 

So I tried adding my standard paragraph style to the TOC (which should make my TOC almost as long as the whole book) just as an experiment and again, InDesign only gave me instances of the chosen paragraph styles up to and including the acknowledgements document but nothing beyond.

 

Perhaps there is a way to ask ID to include all documents by default? It seems to be missing the bulk of my book--everything after the acknowledgements--in generating the TOC.

 

Stumped.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Barb Binder

Hi Mike:

 

I specialize in long doc layout, and creating TOCs is something I am very familiar with. That said, I don't have a good answer for you, other than a vague suspicion of corrupt files. I'm not a fan of blaming it on corruption—it feels like a cop out—but I am unable to pinpoint the issue.

 

Things I wonder:

  1. Did you base each book chapter on the previous file? For example, did you save book 1 as book 2 and then change the content? That could perpetuate an issue that started in book 1 in the subsequent files.
  2. Have the files been around a long time, and are just now getting updated?

 

I have tried many things to work this out, including:

  1. saving the files as .idml
  2. importing the styles from acknowledgements.indd into Book 1.indd
  3. syncing the book using acknowledgements.indd as the style source
  4. creating a new a TOC file and creating the TOC from scratch

 

The only oddity I uncovered is white underlining on the all of the paragraphs. I see why it is on for Book Title, but not sure why all paragraphs have it enabled. Removing it doesn't help, so just pointing it out. It isn't visible unless you pull the text frame onto the pasteboard.

 

 

Meanwhile, how to move on: when I save the acknowledgement chapter under a new name (book2.indd in my screenshot) and then copy and paste the content from book 1.indd into it, the table of contents works just fine and collects and displays the expected paragraphs. You can rebuild the book fairly quickly with this method.

 

I'll continue to puzzle over this, and if a lightbulb finally lights up over my head, I'll come back let you know. 

 

~Barb 

 

 

4 replies

Barb Binder
Community Expert
Barb BinderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 5, 2021

Hi Mike:

 

I suspect that the multiple conversions of the older files caused the issue. After this goes to print and you have some downtime, I would:

  • Save acknowledgements.indd as a new file.
  • Spend time cleaning it up—removing underlines, remove extra styles, etc. 
  • Remove the content and save as a template .indt file.
  • Start any new, future documents for this publication from that template.

 

And we are always happy to help. Come back any time,

 

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
Barb Binder
Community Expert
Barb BinderCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
January 5, 2021

Hi Mike:

 

I specialize in long doc layout, and creating TOCs is something I am very familiar with. That said, I don't have a good answer for you, other than a vague suspicion of corrupt files. I'm not a fan of blaming it on corruption—it feels like a cop out—but I am unable to pinpoint the issue.

 

Things I wonder:

  1. Did you base each book chapter on the previous file? For example, did you save book 1 as book 2 and then change the content? That could perpetuate an issue that started in book 1 in the subsequent files.
  2. Have the files been around a long time, and are just now getting updated?

 

I have tried many things to work this out, including:

  1. saving the files as .idml
  2. importing the styles from acknowledgements.indd into Book 1.indd
  3. syncing the book using acknowledgements.indd as the style source
  4. creating a new a TOC file and creating the TOC from scratch

 

The only oddity I uncovered is white underlining on the all of the paragraphs. I see why it is on for Book Title, but not sure why all paragraphs have it enabled. Removing it doesn't help, so just pointing it out. It isn't visible unless you pull the text frame onto the pasteboard.

 

 

Meanwhile, how to move on: when I save the acknowledgement chapter under a new name (book2.indd in my screenshot) and then copy and paste the content from book 1.indd into it, the table of contents works just fine and collects and displays the expected paragraphs. You can rebuild the book fairly quickly with this method.

 

I'll continue to puzzle over this, and if a lightbulb finally lights up over my head, I'll come back let you know. 

 

~Barb 

 

 

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
R
rexsacrorumAuthor
Inspiring
January 5, 2021

Thanks for checking into it, Barb.

 

Re: your thoughts

 

  1. I did "save as" each book document from the previous file, so you're right, whatever issue happened in the first book was carried over to the rest.
  2. This book was generated from a template (just book/documents files I have saved with predefined styles) which I've copied and overwritten. So the file itself been around a long time, but each time InDesign updates it forces me to save it in the newest format. I'm sure there's a smarter way to make book templates that I haven't discovered.

 

Re: the white underlining, I didn't expect this to be on all styles. Thank you for pointing it out, I'm guessing it will cause me grief in my EPUB/Kindle conversion (everything underlined).

 

I appreciate you looking into this further.

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 3, 2021

    Yes, you would see the duplicates listed under other styles. I don't see any other reason why it isn't working. 

     

    Are you comfortable sharing files with me? You can do this publicly with a link in a reply, or message me privately by clicking my name above and choosing message. I would need four files—the .indb book file, the toc .indd file, the frontmatter .indd file that is working correctly, and one .indd file that is not working. If there are security concerns, you can send a copy of that file with the contents removed, except for sample heads. You can put the file on dropbox (or other file sharing server) and send a link.

     

    ~Barb 

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    R
    rexsacrorumAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 3, 2021

    Ive sent a PM, thanks.

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 3, 2021

    Your setup looks correct.

    1. Are all of the chapters in the book file using the same version of InDesign? To confirm, open all of them and save all of them and try again.
    2. Are there any slight discrepencies in the style names? Are some styles in folders? Are some written slightly differently? (i.e., Book title vs Book Title.) Is there a space after the names in some of the files? 
    3. Is the text there, but overset? Click on acknowledgements vii and choose Type > Edit in Story Editor. Does the missing text appear in that view?

     

    ~Barb 

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    R
    rexsacrorumAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 3, 2021

    Thanks Barb.

     

    1) Yes, all documents are of the latest version (16.0.1 x64).
    2) Titles are in order. I think I'd see these slight discrepancies in the "Other Styles" list, no? Don't seem to be any AFAIK.
    3) The missing text doesn't show up in Story editor. Nop overset text per the little green dot icon at the bottom.

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