Table of Contents: One line per page

[keithconover]

I had a nice Table of Contents style for the chapters of my book. I am not sure what happened, but I am now getting one TOC line per page. I have tried setting all of the options in the three paragraph styles (TOC H1 Entry, TOC H2 Entry, TOC H3 Entry) to the most basic ones. Basic 11/12 text. Everything in Indents and Spacing zeroed out (I can put the proper indents back in after fixing the underlying problem). No Keep options.  I used to have "Between Entry and Number" as ^Y (tab) but changed it to ^M. All to no avail, still just one entry per page. These chapters are part of a book file, and I had the chapter's page numbers with a prefix, so that Chapter 1 started with 1–1, Chapter 2 started with 2-1 and so forth. But when I took off the prefix numbering for the chapters so there are no prefixes and still, only one line per page. I spent about 45 minutes searching the forum and trying different options and I have finally given up and I'm asking for help. Help!

[Scott Falkner]

Have you looked at Space Above or Space Below? That might be set to something very large. Also, in Keep Options, look to see if the paragraph style is set to start a new page. If you are willing to share the file (perhaps with important text removed) we can examine it and find the problem.

[keithconover]

Good thought, but they're both set to zero spacing.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Nothing about the export process is likely to have much to do with this; it's the result, as individual text lines with a particular Paragraph Style applied, that's causing this problem.

The only reason text content breaks out to "one line per page" is either an erroneous Keep option or (as Scott suggests) spacing.

Try this: select all of a generated TOC (Ctrl-A) and apply your Body paragraph style. I'll bet the whole TOC shows up as contiguous lines, even if the formatting isn't what you want. If you have more than one TOC style (as you note), try applying each one to all TOC lines like this. That might isolate one problem style.

So now, you need to look closely at the Keep Options and spacing for all your TOC styles until you spot the glitch. Posting a screen shot of at least the primary or 'parent' style's Keep panel might help.

[keithconover]

Good thought, thank you!

However, I changed the entire Table of Contents to [Basic Paragraph] and the problem persists. Sigh.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Maybe there is something on the Master with TextWrap leaving only enough space for a single line? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Can you share your file - part of it? 

Or if you are on a PC - you could use my tool to get detailed structure of your document. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The only remaining thing would be for the TOC text frame to have settings that are not allowing proper text flow. Select teh frame and hit Ctrl-B, or right-click Text Frame Options, and make sure all settings are neutral ones.

I'm still not convinced Keep Options aren't at fault here. A screen snip of the Keep panel for your first TOC paragraph would help spot any subtle details.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Just as a side note, you should not be using [Basic Paragraph] as a working style. (Or any other [default] style.) These should be avoided even as base or parent styles. All your styles should originate from or trace back to "No Previous Style."

[Barb Binder]

Hi Keith:

I'm happy to take a look. You can put the TOC on dropbox or similar and share a link here (public) or message it to me directly (private).

~Barb

[keithconover]

Thanks for all the thoughts. I hope if anyone else has a similar problem that they find the debugging suggestions in this thread helpful. I couldn't find any problems with the text box.

I am beginning to think it might be a corrupted Table of Contents style and I would have to start a new one from scratch. But yinz (or if you're from New York, youse, or from the South, y'all, or from the deep South, alla y'all) know more than I do about InDesign which is why this forum is such a great place.

The file is publically available at http://www.conovers.org/ftp/AppSAR-Source-Files/.

The direct link is http://www.conovers.org/ftp/AppSAR-Source-Files/AppSAR-1-Short-Term-Survival.indd.

[keithconover]

Or maybe it has something to do with this chapter being part of a book panel?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Your server is very slow...

Next time, please ZIP it - on one had it will make it smaller and will also make sure that the file wasn't corrupted in any way during download - or upload.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Looks like you are constantly doing only SAVE - without SAVE AS with a new name at least daily:

It will clean up your file and also give you a backup copy.

[keithconover]

Thanks for the great advice! I had thought "Save As" was just something to do once in a while, not every day. Too bad that Adobe doesn't recommend this as a best practice when you start using InDesign.

But… this is a project that has been ongoing for years and likely will continue to go on for years. Therefore, for many reasons, I want to keep the filename the same. I was thinking that I could use "Save a Copy" to save a backup and then "Save As" and then save over the original filename.

I'm paranoid about data backup. Every night, all of my new data is backed up from my PC to my laptop, backed up to a portable hard drive using Acronis TrueImage. (I periodically interchange it with a portable hard drive I keep in my locker at work.) Every night, my data is also backed up online (SOS Online Backup). Belt, suspenders and another belt. Given this, what do you think about my saving a backup copy by "Save a Copy" and then saving over the previous night's backup, and then "Save As" and save over the original file?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

The name of the file on your drive - is just bunch of characters. 

After you do Save As with a new name - you can rename the old version - add date&time or number - and then rename new file as the old one. 

[keithconover]

It would be easier the way I proposed: less typing, can just click on the right file to overwrite for both. Is there anything magical about saving under a new name as opposed to "save as" over the old one? The way the OS works that should now be a completely new file, overwriting the previous one.

[Peter Spier · Accepted solution]

Go back and look at your Keep Options for the TOC Style. It's set to start paragraph on next page....

[keithconover]

"WRONG LEVER!!!! (Why DO they have that lever?)" —The Emperor's New Groove

I must have accidentally clicked that option at some point. I have no idea why anyone would want a TOC entry to use that option.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

It's not TOC option - it's ParaStyle option.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

*sigh*