How do you apply Reference Page to Table of Contents page?

[retiredUSMC2011]

I have clicked on View-Reference Page and scrolled to the page that pertains to the formatting of the Table of Contents. I make my changes..(Bolded, added a tab, etc). I click on View-Body Page to return to the Table of Contents of the book. I save the work and the click Apply Update to Book. The Table of Contents does not change to what is on the reference page. I have no experience with scripting or the coding that is on the Reference Page. How do I get the changes I made on the Reference Page work?

Thank you.

[Barb Binder]

Hi retiredUSMC2011 ,

It sounds like you did it correctly, so you are very close.

Can you show a screen shot of the TOC reference page? Reference page changes don't take effect until you update the book, so while I know you said you did that, you might try updating the book one more time.

In the meantime, two common mistakes:

1. be sure to assign bold either via the paragraph tag or a character tag, and not by selecting and clicking the Bold button on the toolbar.
2. there are likely multiple <$paratext> <$pagenum> building blocks on the page. Click in one and glance to the status bar (just below the lower left corner of the document window) to see which paragraph tag you are changing.

And since this is new to you, here are a few resources on creating a TOC in FrameMaker that I've written up for my students over the years:

Adobe FrameMaker: Adding Tabs to a Table of Contents - Rocky Mountain Training

Adobe FrameMaker: More on Customizing a Table of Contents - Rocky Mountain Training

Adobe FrameMaker: Removing Bold Page Numbers in a Table of Contents - Rocky Mountain Training

https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-framemaker-selective-bolding-in-a-table-of-contents/

~Barb

[Stefan-Gentz]

On the reference page, you just define the "structure" of a a Table of Contents entry. You do not define the "formatting" (like bold, where a tabulator goes etc.) there. The formatting is defined in the corresponding paragraph style.

Let's say, you have a definition like this on the reference page to create TOC entries for all paragraphs in your book formatted with the style "Heading1":

<$paranum>\t<$paratext>\t<$pagenum>

This definition file has the paragraph style "Heading 1TOC" and defines, that from all paragraphs in your book formatted with paragraph style "Heading1", FM should first extract the paragraph number (<$paranum>), then make a tabulator (\t), then extract the text of that paragraph (<$paratext>), put again a tabulator (\t) and finally put the page number of the target paragraph in there (<$pagenum>).

Now, open the paragraph designer in your TOC file and select style "Heading 1TOC" and define all the formattings that you want this to use in your TOC.

In a nutshell: Don't do the formatting manually in the definition line on the reference page, but in the paragraph styles with the suffix (TOC).

[retiredUSMC2011]

Folks,

The information and steps provided did not work.

On my Reference page for the TOC I have:

<DefaultParaFont> <$paranum> <$paratext> . . . . . . . . . . . <$pagenum>    (This is ChapterTOC)

     <DefaultParaFont> <#paratext> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <$pagenum>     (This is 1HeadingTOC)

The indent that I have in the 1HeadingTOC does not occur.

The leader dots to the <$pagenum> does not occur.

The page numbers are not placed at the right-justified tab that I created.

I have the following at the very beginning of my TOC Reference Page:

openXmlElementId <$relfilename>:<$UniqueXmlElementId> <$RelativeXmlElementId>

openObjectId <$relfilename>:<$ObjectType> <$ObjectId>

I am under the impression that all formatting I create on the Reference Page should automatically occur on the Body Page when I Update Book. Is this incorrect?

I discovered that when I set a tab under the ruler and then press the TAB key to move, say, <$pagenum> that FM doesn't seem to recognize the TAB function. It won't apply the TAB to the Body Page and insert the leader dots.

Thank You.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Is the <#paratext> code intentional? I'd expect to see <$paratext> in that position.

Also, I believe you can safely remove the <DefaultParaFont> tags at the beginning of the lines.

Check to see if your 1Heading paragraph contain an override on the reference page. If so, it'll show with an asterisk in the tag area. Again, if so, use the Paragraph Designer to update the tag and you should be good to go.

If that still doesn't work, do your formatting on the TOC body page, and use the Paragraph Designer to update that instance of the tag. That will update the tag on the reference page, and avoid any confusion over which paragraph tag is being used.

**Doing the final formatting on the body pages also removes any potential disconnect due to differences in the column width of the body and reference pages. This difference in width may explain your unrecognized tab, as the tab stop itself may be outside of the column width of your body page.

-Matt

[MarkP1315@FSU]

Just came across this. Not sure if you ever got an answer but I had the same problem except the entry for my heading was (using <tab> to show where tab stops are):
 <$paranum><tab><$paratext><tab> . . . . . . . . . . . <$pagenum>

The result was simliar to yours. The paragraph number, tabs, and leader were not dispalyed so the result was the text followed by the page number all left justified.

I found that "<$paratext> <$pagenum>" was inserted near the top of the reference page with the TOC heading style that I wanted. Deleting that line and regenerating the book worked. I noticed this behavior previously but at that time I just moved on and used a previous version of the TOC that I had saved.  Not sure how that rogue line got in there but it's something to watch for.

[Barb Binder]

Not sure how that rogue line got in there but it's something to watch for.

You could have figured it out if you had clicked on it and checked the paragraph style name prior to removing. The TOC lines on the reference page each correspond to the paragraph style names being called into the TOC.

For example, if you add text assigned ChapterTitle to the TOC, FrameMaker creates a paragraph style in the TOC called ChapterTitleTOC and adds the line of building blocks with that style assigned to the TOC reference page. 

Extra lines tend to appear on the reference page because someone intitially wanted to include a style in the TOC and then changed their mind. Maybe they thought they wanted ChapterTitles, Heading1s, Heading2s and Heading3s. Fm creates the TOC styles for each of those four and a line for each on the reference page. If they then remove Heading3 from the Setup TOC dialog box and update, Fm will leave the Heading3TOC line behind. Theoretically, it doesn't hurt to leave it there but it's confusing, so I would exactly what you did — I would remove it.

My personal nightmare: sometimes I encounter legacy documents with 5 to 10 extra lines just sitting on the TOC reference page, reflecting years of people changing their minds and not cleaning up the reference page. 

~Barb

[Barb Binder]

Hi retiredUSMC2011​,

If following Matt's last instructions still isn't working, I'm happy to take a look at the files. I'd need a copy of the book with a few pages of one chapter and the TOC. You can zip them and put them on dropbox and either post the link here (public) or hover over my name above this response and message the link (private).

~Barb