Participating Frequently

Question

creating space between table of contents entries and page numbers

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 15, 2023
3 replies
5429 views

I'm making a list of figures using the table of contents tool and wanted to keep the text from going all of the way to right side so that the page numbers are seperated from the text. In the paragraph style for the TOC entry I added a right indent of 1" with a last line indent of -1". This worked for most of them(like figure 12) but for a couple of entries(like figure 11) the last line of text ended up running really close to the page number.

I saw one thing about adding a second right indent tab in the TOC styles but when I did that it created the space between the text and page number but also ended up adding a line of dot leaders to each entry like this.

Are there any other ways to automate making there be a minimum distance between the text for the entry and the page number without adding the second row of dot leaders or manually adding soft returns to the entries that aren't working correctly?

Thanks

How to

N

Nicolas Jansens

Participant

This worked for me: In your TOC settings, set “Between Entry and Number” to ^t^y = Tab Character + Right Indent Tab. Then set up the applied paragraph style to include a left-justified tab at a shorter distance and a right-justified one at a longer distance. The left-justified tab will act as a limit at which point the text of the entry will break onto the next line. The numbering will align to the right-justified tab.

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Brian27472827l5wr

Known Participant

This worked brilliantly for one of my three TOC paragraph styles, but for the other ones, it resulted in a single missing dot just to the left of the left-justified tab locations. I highlighted the first missing dot in the attached screen capture. As you can see, there is not actually a white space character there; there's simply a gap. Anyone have suggestions of what to try as far as troubleshooting? So far I have double checked that I didn't include any space character in the TOC settings and I have tried adjusted the position of the left-justified tab to several different spots. When I moved the inner tab, the gap moves too, but it won't go away.

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

I know some think the right-indent tab is a wonderful feature, but I've had quirks and faults in pretty much every instance I've used it.

Barb Binder

Community Expert

The last line right indent is for handling those very long and potentiality multi-line titles in a TOC:
https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-indesign-what-is-a-last-line-right-indent/

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

C

Christian23706628ydkpAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thats working for almost all of the entries, but on some the text is the right length on the last line to be able to get really close to the page number since the last line can be longer, is there any way to force a minimum amount of space between the text and page number to spill the text down to the next line or do I just have to manually move it down to the next line with soft returns for the couple of instances where the last line gets really close to the page number since it doesn't have the indent to let the page number go to the right side?

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Christian23706628ydkpAuthor

Participating Frequently

Heres a second example that might be a better example where the last entry isn't as close to the page number as before but where the last line can get closer to the number than the 1" indent that the first line has, is it possible to force 1" of space between the page number and the text on the last line without just inserting soft returns?

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

TOC entries should have at least one paragraph style defined, or often, a style for each TOC level. In that paragraph style you can define pretty much any line spacing (indent, tabs, right margin) you like.

One way to invisibly control wrap in things like TOC entries is to use hard (nonbreaking) spaces in the text, so that given segments are 'glued together' without relying on margins or manual wrap.

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