Last TOC entry hidden in overset text

[stephene9093387]

I have what to me is a bizarre problem. I have created a document and added a Table of Contents. Everything has worked fine - all the TOC entries (3 levels) appear and are formatted correctly until I add a final text box with a top level format (Heading 1). When I update the TOC, this final entry disappears into the overset text.

The final spread looks like this:

but the last entry ('Acknowledgements') doesn't appear in the TOC or at least it's hidden in the overset text. I cannot get the last Heading 1 text entry to appear in the TOC. If I demote it to Heading 2 then it appears correctly under the previous entry:

I have simplified things as much as possible to isolate the problem, removing any 'Keep' options for the TOC entries and removing any surrounding text. It seems no use to create dummy text boxes and try to follow the overset text - it never appears.

I am stumped. Am I missing something obvious? Can anyone shed any light on what's happening and why I cannot get this last entry into the TOC?

Thanks, Stephen

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

A simple effort: completely delete your TOC box and re-place it from a new TOC request. That would fix any kind of odd corruption or glitch in the structure itself, or should. (Before or after, make sure no untoward Object Styles are applied to it.)

If the lost line persists, arrow-down until you are sure the cursor is on it, wherever it may be, and look for both paragraph and character overrides. If you find them, eliminate them with the usual reformat steps. I'd then look at the actual document element that TOC line is referencing and make sure nothing odd is applied to it  — TOC generation pulls in a number of character and other formats/overrides and it might be grabbing a Keep or spacing setting in this case.

You could also select-all in the TOC box and apply one or the other TOC style. Then use Hidden Chars to see if there is anything oddball in that entry.

All just quick thoughts on how I'd approach it; I suspect this will be a "try stuff until the demon pops out" sort of fix.

[stephene9093387]

Thanks for the suggestions. Deleting and recreating the TOC makes no difference. Moving the cursor down to the hidden overset text finds no paragraph overrides and there are no character styles applied. I have completely deleted the end text boxes and recreated them without resolving the problem.

It appears that I cannot go beyond nine Heading 1 entries in the TOC. If I remove one of the earlier headings, e.g. the 'Foreword' at position 1, I reveal each of the ones beyond the end in turn but they always stop at 9, no matter how many Heading 1s I place beyond there. Is something limiting the entries in the TOC to 9?

Further to this, I have tried creating a new TOC Style and changing style elements one by one. The problem seems to occur when I add numbering to the Heading 1 TOC style, i.e. the style I have told it to display Heading 1 entries in. If I remove the numbering from the Heading 1 TOC style, the TOC displays correctly and includes all the entries at the end with no overset text.

However, I cannot add the numbering to the Heading entries themselves in the main body of the document as the numbering doesn't increment from one to the next.

Why does numbering the TOC style in this way create this weird problem? What have I missed?

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

[Robert at ID-Tasker · Accepted solution]

@stephene9093387

Something related to the fact, that "10" is two digits/characters?

What are your indents and tab stops? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@stephene9093387

What if you start decreasing Point Size or Horizontal Scale of the Heading 1 TOC Style?

[stephene9093387]

Ah!! Light bulb moment. Yes, that's exactly what the problem was. I hadn't left enough space for the double digit entries. Whew, thank you so much!

Problem solved (until I come across the next one...)

Cheers, Stephen

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Ah!! Light bulb moment. Yes, that's exactly what the problem was. I hadn't left enough space for the double digit entries. Whew, thank you so much!

Problem solved (until I come across the next one...)

Cheers, Stephen

By @stephene9093387

You are welcome 😄 

[Susan Culligan]

Have you tried backspacing through the retun after "Sources" to bring "Acknowledgments" up to that line, then putting another Return to put it on a new line? This should remove any weird formatting and give it the same attributes as "Sources," which behaves correctly. Just a thought.

[stephene9093387]

Thanks for the suggestions. Not sure whether you meant in the TOC or in the text boxes at the end. Assuming the latter, I tried various deletions but even deleting the end text boxes and rewriting them made no difference; the last one always disappeared. Weird. I'm about to try James' suggestions above.

Thanks, Stephen

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@stephene9093387

Can you share your document? Can be on priv if you prefer - please click my nickname.

[stephene9093387]

Yes, I'd be happy to share the document except it is probably impractical as there are two hundred links to other documents; all the images are linked to local files. However, I have discovered what caused the problem - see my answer to James above. If I add numbering to the top level headings for the TOC, the entries stop after nine. If I remove the numbering, the TOC displays correctly. However, this does not resolve the problem if I want the top-level entries in the TOC numbered.

Grateful for any of your thoughts on why numbering the top-level TOC styles creates this problem.

Thanks again.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@stephene9093387

Just the INDD file - links or fonts are not needed.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@stephene9093387

Yes, I've already mentioned that you've "spacing" problem - not enough space for two digits.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I agree it is the two digits, but the question is "why?". It has to be a no break issue--otherwise it would just wrap.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I agree it is the two digits, but the question is "why?". It has to be a no break issue--otherwise it would just wrap.

By @Dave Creamer of IDEAS

What would wrap? 

Automatic numbering will be a single entity consisting of two characters - you can't select "1" or "0". 

Unless you convert it to text. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Same as variables. 

[stephene9093387]

Thanks everybody for all the suggestions. It all helped. Robert hit on what was causing the problem, though why it had that effect I don't know. Problem solved - thanks.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The numbers would obviously the problem--but why?

It would still be interesting to look at the TOC. The rest of the book is unnecessary.

[stephene9093387]

The file is 92MB - is that too large to upload?

Here are screenshots of the TOC:

Apologies, it's heading towards midnight here in Scotland so I'll possibly not do any more tonight. Thanks again for all the help.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@stephene9093387 

Please upload just the TOC - of course can be tomorrow - just copy TOC Story to a new document.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

The file is 92MB - is that too large to upload?

By @stephene9093387

Please do SaveAs with a new name, then ZIP it, upload to some sharing service and send link on priv.

You can also try IDMLing - export as IDML, open, save with a new name - do not overwrite your original INDD file.

Try generating TOC again on this new file.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

The numbers would obviously the problem--but why?

By @Dave Creamer of IDEAS

You are right. Whatever way I try to play with a sample text - it will just shift away from the numbers...

Maybe document is corrupted?

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

deleted

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Check to see if you have a character style applied to the "Acknowledgements" text--particually if it has No Break applied. 

[stephene9093387]

Thanks, but I haven't applied any character styles anywhere (I don't think). I have tried all sorts of deleting the text boxes at the end and previous ones. It looks to be a problem with numbering the top-level TOC heading style, as I've answered above. If you have any thoughts as to why this is happening I'd be grateful.

Thanks