TOC (table of contents) Formatting/Leader Tab Problems

[Douglas_Campbell]

BACKGROUND

I have found it impossible to format TOCs with leader tabs as I've seen the procedure outlined in numerous forum posts, books, and elswehere. I am an intermediate FrameMaker user running FM 9 on Windows XP Pro. I run the same setup on a home and office machine with the same problem.

I am in the process of migrating very large volumes of our company's documentation from LaTek to FM and this issue is proving to be insurmountable.I need to have complete control over this process, instead of "making do" with the default TOC.

I have spent three days studying every nuance of the issue, which usually leads me to some insight or pattern that lets me solve the problem, or at least share some clue on the forums. However, in this case, FM either doesn't work as its supposed to or it implements my changes in a seemingly arbitrary manner. So I'm not sure if this is a bug or a user error. I've also experienced the occasional crash of FM during all this work, oftentimes this is preceded by the Paragraph Designer window freezing up and refusing to change views within the window (i.e. basic, default font, etc.).

THE PROBLEM

More specifically, I've learned to manage general formatting with the building blocks on the "reference page", but the leader tabs I use for the page numbers almost never propogate, unless I use the sample TOC included with FM.

I am certain they are properly formatted, I've even copied examples directly from files that I know work (FM sample files).

When I implement the process manually, I insert the tab between the building blocks (no spaces), set a right flush tab, double click and choose tab leader option. Then I go to "body page" view, save the document, and regenerate the TOC. Usually nothing happens. Ocassionally, after regenerating several times or creating a fresh TOC, some of the changes magically propogate.

I have even tried importing the format of another TOC, which only seems to work randomly. Mostly not.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Douglas

[Art_Campbell1]

Well, first, you don't specify what level of FM9 you're running, so I'd make sure that you're fully patched up.

Then, you seem to have the Reference Page part of the specifying down. But you're either not giving us all the details of how you set up the HeadingTOC paragraph tags on the Body page of the TOC, or you're skipping steps.

While you mention editing the TOC para tags on the Reference page, I'd recommend that you edit then on the Body pages of the TOC. Also, you specificly don't mention clicking UpdateAll on the Para Tag designer to write your changes into the Para Tag Catalog. It's a critical step.

And second (and this may not have anything to do with your problem)... If your migration procedure involves moving formatted text, I'd make sure that you do a SaveAs MIF in your workflow so you can make sure that foreign characters aren't being inserted into the FM files.

Art

[Arnis Gubins]

Doug,

When you apply the formatting to the building blocks to insert the tab leader, do you "Update All" in the Paragraph Designer to ensure that this formatting is preserved in the Paragraph Catalog? Then do you also save your TOC file before doing an update/regenerate?

What point version of FM9 are you using (Help > About)? The latest release is at FM9.0p250 (aka 9.0.3).

[Douglas_Campbell]

Thanks for your quick responses, as well as your other suggestions for my project.

I am running FM 9.0p230. I tried upgrading to 9.0.3 when I began encountering this problem, but received an error message telling me I was running the wrong version of FM. If any one is familiar with this error message and can mention the fix before I delive into that problem, it is also appreciated.

I have attached the TOC. I'm not sure how/if this can be used to help me troubleshoot, so please let me know. I am new to the forums and the development side of FM.

I did "update all" on the paragraphs tags in question. If you look in the body view of this page with text symbols turned on, you can see the symbols for the second tab stops I have placed between the text and page number. That informatoin also appears in the Paragraph Designer. Both of those things add to my confusion on this matter, because that would seem to indicate I have globally applied the paragraph tags correctly, right?

If you go to the reference page, you will see my treatment of the building blocks.

Thanks again in advance for help,

Douglas

[Arnis Gubins · Accepted solution]

You've set your tab positions to be outside the text frame (6.25"). The maximum position is only 4.625". Tab stops are set within the context of the Text frame, not by the value of the Rulers along the top.

[Arnis Gubins]

FM's patches have to be installed in sequence. If you have FM9.0p230, then you only have the 9.0.1 patch installed. Install the 9.0.2 patch (to get to FM9.0p237) and then the 9.0.3 patch to get to FM9.0p250.

[Douglas_Campbell]

Thank you for your help, Arnis!

That was the right answer.