Table of contents stops after page 1

[Gphoto]

When I ask for a TOC I get one with only the titles on page 1. My paragraph styles etc are OK. If I add a title on page 1 it shows up, if add one on page 19 it doesn't see it.

I started this as inndb, loaded the first chapter and then started adding pages as I always did when I published a newsletters in interactive PDF, not adding things to the "Book" panel. My first mistake I think. Now the file is inndd. I have tried changing it all back to inndb, and have spent days trying to change other things, but have had no success. I have found no way to talk to Adobe about InDesign. Any suggestions?

[Willi Adelberger]

If you work with an INDB file you have to include all documents of the book and they have to be added into the book.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

When using documents in a book, the TOC style needs to have the Include Book Documents option selected. Otherwise, the TOC only "looks" in the document the TOC is created in.

[Barb Binder]

Just trying to play catch up: at this point, are you now working with an .indb file—which is an InDesign book file with .indd document files added to it—or do you have all the content in one .indd document file?

In either case, when you create a table of contents, you do so by specifying paragraph tags, which allows InDesign to then collect all of the content that is formatted with those paragraph tags. For example, one might tell InDesign to collect all content tagged with the paragraph tags called Title and Subtitle. You need to be consistent applying the same paragraph tags throughout a single document, and all the documents within the book window. The spelling of the tags must be consistent across book documents, and If you use folders to organize your styles, the folder names must be identical as well.

A particular source of angst is capitalization. If you tell InDesign to collect all the Titles and Subtitles in a folder called "Heads" (left) it will not find them in the folder called "heads" (right).

~Barb

[Gphoto]

Thanks Barb. I thought that I knew how to do the TOC. I have done hundreds in Interactive PDF...ihdd, with NO problem This is my first "booK" and I started in indb, but after I got it set up and put the first chapter in, I kept adding more pages and chapters without using the book panel. Now when I save it, it is indd. The "include book documents" on the TOC page, does not light up. The TOC only goes to the second page and doesn't recognize the rest of the pages...now 61, mostly "how to" pictures of exercise. I assume this is because the format of the first part is different than the rest, and I haven't been able to figure out how to make them all the same. Now I'd prefer it to be indd, because it would be more familiar to me, and I understand that a book can be printed just as well from indd.

     Thanks for taking you time to help.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Gphoto ,

Ok, I think you have a book (.indb) file with one 61 page document (.indd) file inside. Is that right?

The advantage of a book is that you can add multiple documents, and then access book-level commands like controlling pagination and paragraph numbers, syncing formatting and printing all the files from one place.

If you just have one file in the book, then I'd say just ignore the book and work with the one file. In that one file, here are the general steps:

1. Determine what paragraph style(s) you want included in the TOC (i.e., Titles, Subtitles—the specific names don't matter)
2. Review each page of the document—are all the titles tagged as Title? Are all the subtitles tagged as Subtitle? If not, assign the tags.
3. Then add a page (or pages), if you don't already one (or more) for the TOC.
4. Layout > Table of Contents. Define the Title (Contents or Table of Contents) and then select the paragraph tags and move them into the left column under the heading Include Paragraph Styles.
   
5. Click OK and place the text on the blank page. Did InDesign find all of the text? If not, return to step 2 and assign the tags to the text that wasn't collected. Then repeat step 4.

~Barb

[Gphoto]

Barb,

     I think that I have solved my immediate problem. Publishing may still be an issue. If my hypothesis is correct, I should be able to delete the first part and then the rest would be indd. I deleted the first four pages and now all of the chapter titles etc, show up.that are on the rest of the pages. Instead of trying to change the formatting, which I've been trying to do for days, I just eliminated the problem. I hope that this solves it. I just need to redo the cover and the other pages.

     Thanks again.

[Barb Binder]

What is "the first part"? Another chapter in the book file, or the first four pages in the InDesign file? I'm thinking you must have had a second chapter in the book file?

Based on your comfort level with documents, and the current confusion with books, you might want to just add those four pages to the front of the document file. Remember that you can right click on pages in the Pages panel to change the numbering on a spread—allowing you number the front matter with roman numerals, and then restart with arabic numerals as you get to the body of the document. (i.e., i–iv, 1–61).

[Gphoto]

The first part was the cover and some initial pages that I uploaded initially into the book panel. I never added another chapter to the panel My bad.

The numbering works fine, and I'm starting to do the cover again. I considered pasting it back into this file, but it would probably come with old formatting, so I'm going to redo it.

[Barb Binder]

I never added another chapter to the panel

So that explains why the TOC couldn't find the other heads.

~Barb