Indesign TOC

[mhogben]

My TOC numbering is off by a couple pages in one out of four sections of my book I am putting together. How do I get the pages to reflect the correct page inside the book?

[vladan saveljic]

We need more informations: eg. screenshot of your toc settings, paragraph styles applied to the titles with issue.

[Randy Hagan · Accepted solution]

Hard tellin' (for sure) not knowin', but generally variations in page numbers for a given section of a book is generally a symptom of accidentally creating a new "section" in the book at a spot where you really didn't want one.

With InDesign, that's exceptionally easy to do because when you open the Layout>Numbering & Section Options... menu command it automatically wants to create a new section on whatever document page you have selected/have showing in your InDesign document when you open the panel. Open that dialog box on the wrong page, and you'll automatically create a new section in the document — whether you want one or not.

Fixing it, though is pretty easy:

1. Go to the first wrongly numbered page in your section. Select the Layout>Numbering & Section Options... menu command.
2. When the Numbering & Section Options panel opens, you have two options for fixing the issue. You can either select the Start Page Numbering at: radio button and enter the page number you want it to be in the following edit box, or you can select the Automatic Page Numbering radio button and de-select the Start Section check box, as appropriate. Click the OK button and check your handiwork.
3. If you're not getting the result you expect, pick the option above in Step 2 that will work better for you. Make note, though, that when you open the dialog box again, InDesign will automatically re-select the Start Section check box. This is likely how you encountered the issue in the first place. Fine-tune your entries to get the result you expect.

Hopefully this will help you fix your page numbering issues.

Good luck,

Randy

[Diane Burns]

Just checking: Have you updated the TOC? (Layout menu > Update Table of Contents)