ToC Not Ordering all Text Objects Correctly

Question

I’m working on a document in InDesign and I’m trying to create a table of contents. I’ve created paragraphs styles for Headings and Subheadings and applied them accordingly in the document. I’ve also created paragraph styles that dictate how the ToC itself should appear, and used them when creating the ToC. However, when I create the ToC it doesn’t pull some the page headings properly.

Here is a snapshot of my document.

As you can see, the ToC has the order of (Workflows → Schedules → Keys → Vehicles)

when the document itself is ordered (Workflows → Keys → Schedules → Vehicles).

What’s more, if I change the order of the headings in the document the ToC won’t reflect it even if I update it or create a new ToC all together. Additionally, it was working properly in earlier versions of my document but then stopped working. I contacted Adobe Chat support and they couldn't help me. They said it might be something to do with linking, but when I asked for more detail they couldn't explain it and suggested I post on a forum. How can this be fixed?

Many Thanks

Peter Spier · Answer

Without seeing even a screen shot of the file it's hard to say, but the most common reason for out-of-order TOC entries is the text frames are arranged badly. ID starts in the upper left, then moves down the page looking for things to include before moving to the right and starting at the top again, so a frame low on the page, but further to the left, gets picked up before a frame higher on the page, but further to the right.

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