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Need help with a special TOC

New Here ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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Hi. I'm formatting a book of poems in InDesign. The content consists of 582 poems, with 2 poems per page. The poems run straight through the book, with no sections, chapters or headings, only page numbers. Each poem's title is boldface Times New Roman, size 12 (sample page attached). I'm having trouble making a TOC, especially since this is my first TOC. Can someone advise me, please? Thank you. -- Clare

 

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Community Expert ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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There should be no problem with this. Set up your TOC using the poem titles as the target paragraph style.

 

You could even get tricky and only put a page number on the first of each poem by assigning one Paragraph Style to the first on each page and an identical one, with different name, to the second. (You may already have that set up to provide page breaks for the first.) So the TOC would show:

 

  • First Poem About Frogs...........................241
    Second Poem About Frogs
  • First Poem About Giraffes.....................242
    Second Poem About Giraffes

 

...etc.

 

Otherwise, setting up a TOC is fairly straightforward but involves a number of steps. You might be best off finding a good tutorial, or we can walk you through the basics here.

 

 


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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New Here ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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Thank you very much. 

Clare

 

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Community Expert ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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@TEMPLEAHAVATACHIM

 

As @James Gifford—NitroPress said - it would be straightforward IF you have ParaStyles applied to the poem titles.

 

If you don't - then you need to use Find&Change to apply them. 

In Find What set formatting applied to the titles, in Change To select ParaStyle that should be applied - leave text fields Find & Change blank. 

 

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New Here ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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Thank you very much. It's okay. I applied a style to all the titles before I started the TOC. I then tried to do a TOC and it did appear, but it started on page 12. Plus the titles of the poems were aligned perfectly to the left, but the page numbers not all aligned. Should I just use the tab key to line them up, or is there a better method? And do you have any idea why the TOC started on page 12? That one really threw me. -- Clare

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Community Expert ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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@TEMPLEAHAVATACHIM

 

What do you mean by "starts on page 12"?

You can place TOC anywhere - first entry will be where the first poem is.

If you need other entries - you need to add corresponding ParaStyles included as well. 

 

In order to have page numbers aligned - you need to define new ParaStyle and use it when generating TOC - and set TAB stop accordingly in this ParaStyle definition + align right - you can also add leading dots. 

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/indesign/using/tabs-indents.html

 

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New Here ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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I should have said starts WITH page 12. I mean that first there's the heading, "Table of Contents," and right under that is the title of the poem that's on page 12, and the number 12 next to it. The first 11 pages were not included in the TOC.  I'll follow your directions about page number alignment. Thank you. 

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Community Expert ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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Pretty much the only reason things like this happen are if you have mismatched paragraph styles on the headings you want captured for the TOC.

 

Putting it simply, from what you've described of your book, you should have two and only two paragraph styles for your poem titles: something like "Poem Title" for the lower one on each page, with spacing above as appropriate, and then a child/clone of that style, named "Poem Title pgbrk" or such, that should remain identical except for adding a Keep Option/Break to Next Page setting.

 

Your TOC should then be composed of just these two styles, which can be formatted identically or differentiated (no page number on the second, as suggested above, or the second one indented slightly to indicate same page, or none of the above.)

 

That should bring all of the poem titles into the TOC.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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Community Expert ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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quote

I should have said starts WITH page 12. I mean that first there's the heading, "Table of Contents," and right under that is the title of the poem that's on page 12, and the number 12 next to it. The first 11 pages were not included in the TOC.  I'll follow your directions about page number alignment. Thank you. 


By @TEMPLEAHAVATACHIM

 

Do you have any poems on the first 11 pages? 

 

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Community Expert ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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Again, TOCs are straightforward (and fairly flexible), but there are a number of steps you have to perform in order. Here's the basic Adobe help page: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/creating-table-contents.html

 

Absorb that and see if you can get a basic TOC in the right place in your document, and then we can walk you through fine-tuning it for the special characteristics.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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New Here ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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Thank you.

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New Here ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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Hi. I have created a TOC with all the poem titles and each poem's page number right aligned perfectly.  Problem: the TOC is 11 pages long, so the first poem starts on page 12. But the TOC says the first poem starts on page 2. How can I fix this so the first poem starts on page 1, and so this is correctly reflected in the TOC? Should I should make the TOC a separate section with different page numbering, e.g., i, ii, iii, iv, etc. ? If so, how can I do this? 

I should also point out that the poems are not arranged in any logical order. One page will have a poem about an insect and a poem about a squirrel, and so on. So every single poem is assigned its own page number (see screenshot), which is why the TOC is so long. I wish the author had grouped the poems by subject matter. Screenshot 2024-06-12 at 6.09.13 PM.png

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Community Expert ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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On the first page of the first poem,  right click and set a Section marker (like the circled one) in the Page palette, and set the numbering to Restart at 1.

JamesGiffordNitroPress_0-1718230893687.png

 

You will probably want to set the very first (actual) page's Section to start at 1, using lower-case Roman (i, ii, etc.)


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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New Here ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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I got to the point of setting the numbering to start at one, and this appeared on the screen: 
Screenshot 2024-06-12 at 7.29.09 PM.png

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Community Expert ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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That's why you need to change the number of the first (very first page) section, so they are numbered differently.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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New Here ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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Got it. I did change the TOC section's page number to i, ii, iii, etc. And now the sonnets are in a new section numbered page 1, 2, etc. Thank you.

There's just one thing (groan). The TOC lists the first sonnets as being on page 2 when in fact they're on page 1. Consequently every page number in the TOC is off by 1. See attached screenshot. Can you tell me how to fix this?
Screenshot 2024-06-12 at 8.18.46 PM.png

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Community Expert ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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Update the TOC. It's a manual operation in ID.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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New Here ,
Jun 12, 2024 Jun 12, 2024

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WIll do. Thank you for all your help. I appreciate your patience. 

Clare

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Community Expert ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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To set up the page number correctly use a right aligned tabulator. In the setup of the toc insert a tabulator and exchange the t of the code with a y. 

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New Here ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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Thank you.

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Community Expert ,
May 29, 2024 May 29, 2024

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You need to have a paragraph style applied to all the poem titles, and only to the poem titles. It also helps to create a paragraph style for the TOC entries. Make a faux entry with title and page number then set the style, margins, and tabs as you want them. Make that a paragraph style then use that for the TOC entries. Your TOC setup might look like this…

Screenshot 2024-05-29 at 7.48.56 PM.png

The results look like this…

Screenshot 2024-05-29 at 7.48.46 PM.png

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New Here ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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Excellent. Thanks so much.

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New Here ,
May 30, 2024 May 30, 2024

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Superb info. Many thanks. 

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