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A
Airlens
Known Participant
December 10, 2019
Question

TOC order

  • December 10, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 1047 views

A doc has 3 styles of interest on the title page, ChaptNum, ChaptTitle, and ChaptSubTitle.  They are all on the same layer and the frames are not connected.  These styles are then arranged on the TOC setup as shown above.

ChaptNum (level 1)

   Chapt Title (level 2)

       ChaptSubTitle (level 3)

 

 When the TOC is generated the order is reversed.

ChaptSubTitle

   ChaptTitle

       ChaptNum

How can I fix this?  (New to ID)

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3 replies

vladan saveljic
vladan saveljic
Inspiring
December 10, 2019

Exactly. Without seeing your file I can't know your settings but I assume you did just like I described above. In that case (disconnected text frames) indesign reads from top left to bottom left and then from top right to bottom right

A
AirlensAuthor
Known Participant
December 10, 2019
I will try this soon. The ChaptNum style is in the upper right of the page so you would think it would pick that up on the top to bottom scan followed by the other two styles which are left side mid page.

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Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
December 12, 2019

Maybe the page architecture is throwing off how the TOC's hierarchy is made. (I reviewed the screen caps of the TOC style and it looks correct.) I've never seen this occur in a TOC before and I've generated countless TOCs in InDesign.

 

Suggestion:

Try either linking/threading your page frames together into a logical reading order and then regenerate the TOC.

 

Or even better, make one frame on the page and use formatting styles to adjust the alignment of the various headings.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
vladan saveljic
vladan saveljic
Inspiring
December 10, 2019

 

if this is your issue as in my screenshot then the frames (non connected) of level 1 are more to the right than the other levels and the frames of level 3 are more to the left

A
AirlensAuthor
Known Participant
December 10, 2019
From your TOC set-up screen I would have expected to see Level 1 at the top, but instead it is at the bottom, so what you are saying is that since the text frames are not connected the position of the text frame on the page determines where they fall in the TOC? In my example, the ChaptNum style would have to be further left on the page than the other two OR the text frames have to be connected. AM I understanding you correctly?
M
Migintosh
Legend
December 10, 2019

I haven't done TOC work for a while, but there's something in my memory that might be relevant. You say that "They are all on the same layer and the frames are not connected," but does that mean that these bits of type are in different text frames that aren't flowing through a text chain? If so, see if bringing the one you want first to the front changes it's order in the TOC. I can't remember it this works for ID, Quark or PageMaker, but I think it's worth a try.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
December 10, 2019

Hi @Airlens,

Since you have the 3 independent "paragraphs of interest" in separate text frames, most likely the problem is the stacking order in the Layers Panel.

  • Open the layer in the Layers Panel. 
  • Drag/drop the 3 frames so that the 1st one in the order is at the bottom of the stack, etc.
  • The layer should look like this:
    • ChaptSubTitle (level 3)
    • Chapt Title (level 2)
    • ChaptNum (level 1)

InDesign and other programs often process the items based on the stacking order, and it's bottom-up. That is, the bottom most item is read first, second from the bottom is read next, etc.

 

Let us know if this corrects the problem with your TOC.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
A
AirlensAuthor
Known Participant
December 10, 2019

I arranged the Layers Panel as you suggested above, but when I set the TOC up the results remain unchanged.  I haven’t found anything that will change the order in any way.  I can however, apply TOC Styles to the TOC, change the tabs, leaders, and the page numbers are correct, it’s just the order that I can’t change. 

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