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mwilson12000
mwilson12000
New Participant
August 27, 2018
Answered

Error in Table of Contents

  • August 27, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 6425 views

Just as I am in the process of finalizing a document for printing, a really nasty problem has started. There is an automatically-generated Table of Contents in Microsoft Word. For some reason, Acrobat is starting to change some of the page numbers in the Table of Contents! The Word TOC has the correct page numbers, and the sections start on those pages in the PDF as well, but the PDF TOC is incorrect. The problem starts with Chapter 7. Its page number is listed as 178 instead of 177, and every section after that is also one page too high.  I have tried updating fields in Word -- but that doesn't change anything because it's already correct in Word.  I have tried Repair Installation in Acrobat, but no change. I am using the PDFMaker plugin with Microsoft Word, but the same problem occurs if I use the built-in save-as-PDF option in Word, which is really strange. I have Acrobat Standard DC and Word 2016.  Windows 10, 64 bit. A really awful thought -- what if some of the other automatically-generated fields, like reference numbers or footnote numbers are also being messed up?!

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Correct answer Test Screen Name

Since this happens also if you use Save as PDF, it shows that Word is messing up rather than Acrobat. It isn’t a good thing but it’s important to know what is failing. Repairing Acrobat can’t fix a Word problem.

2 replies

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Test Screen NameCorrect answer
Brainiac
August 28, 2018

Since this happens also if you use Save as PDF, it shows that Word is messing up rather than Acrobat. It isn’t a good thing but it’s important to know what is failing. Repairing Acrobat can’t fix a Word problem.

mwilson12000
mwilson12000Author
New Participant
August 28, 2018

Good point. I have now checked that if I print the TOC from Word, the printed page has the wrong page numbers. My problem is not solved, but it does seem that Acrobat is off the hook for the problem.  Thanks!

mwilson12000
mwilson12000Author
New Participant
August 28, 2018

In case anyone is interested, I tried repairing the installation of Word, but that did not help.  However, by making minor changes to p. 176 of my document I was able to get it to print and PDF properly.

mwilson12000
mwilson12000Author
New Participant
August 28, 2018

By the way, the document also has a List of Maps and a List of Photographs, and the page numbers in those lists are also off by one for every page after p. 177.  I did some spot checks and did not see any problems with footnote numbers or reference numbers, but there are a few page references in the text and those are off, too, with the same pattern (low pages numbers correct, high page numbers off by one).

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