TOC contents comes in bold when no bold is implemented (not even in character styles)

[casinclaire]

SITUATION:

I am creating a TOC using the TOC function in InD, a function which I've used often. This time, as in previous projects, I have created and chosen my paragraph styles for both the TOC title and the TOC content lines. Except for one character style that will slightly downsize the page #, nothing unusual is going on. I have no styles based on other styles, and no errant character styles have been applied anywhere. As far as I can tell, everything is A-OK in the TOC set-up window.

PROBLEM:

When I generate and place the TOC, the TOC title comes in fine (honoring its para style). But the TOC content comes in as Bold -- except, of course, for the page number which has its own character style; it downsizes as per that style and, interestingly, it also does NOT come in as Bold (which is how the whole line should be!).

I don't know why the main text of the content is coming in bold (excepting the well-behaved page number). This has happened before and, actually, not just with TOCs, though that's the problem right now. I keep my default character style on "none" but sometimes, Bold will apply itself anyway, and, yes, it shows up that way in the character palette at that point -- but not because I chose it or because the styles are based on other styles that have bold, and not because I ran a PrepText script and embedded character styles, etc.  I've never found the reason for this one particular behavior. I usually let it go in the interest of time, but it's getting old.

As for the current TOC problem, I can find no mistakenly applied character styles. Moments before I generate the TOC, Character Style is set to "none." But as soon as I generate and place my TOC, the content comes in as Bold (again, excepting the page #), and the character palette reflects this.

There must be some reason the Bold kicks in -- maybe it's picking up somehow from the TOC title, which is Bold? Only, the title is a different para style all its own, and the TOC content lines are not based on it or any style. I also have no nested styles or any kind of GREP going on anywhere.

I suppose, as a work-around, I could create a character style for the TOC content, just to thwart the errant Bold, but that shouldn't be necessary!

Any thoughts, anyone? Much appreciated in advance!

[vladan saveljic]

can you share the file (or some pages of your document) with us?

[casinclaire]

Can't, sorry, due to contractual clauses re intellectual property. But whatever the problem is, I don't believe the actual content of the book is relevant; I believe it has to do with styles somehow, though I can't find any inconsistencies in how mine are set up.

[vladan saveljic]

Ok.

Can you replace text in 2-3 pages and send us the file?

[casinclaire]

I appreciate your willingness to help. 🙂  By now, though, you've probably read my longer reply that I posted after I replied to you before, where I explain what actually happened.  No longer have the problem, though clearly I will have to be much more aware of this potential in future.

[Frans v.d. Geest]

When defining the TOC, click on the More button. Now click each paragraph style entry in the left upper pane and then look below for which paragraph styles is used when this entry is generated. I bet that it is in that defenition. Remember each entry (or 'level') has to be set up individualy. Look for any applied GREP or Nested Style in every Paragraph style for each entry in the TOC.

[casinclaire · Accepted solution]

Yep. Did all that before I posted my question. All was well in the TOC setup.

However, I did just now accidentally figure out what is going on, and it WAS to do with an embedded bold character style after all <she said with red face>. I didn't realize at first because I hadn't yet dragged the very long TOC text box (like, four pages long) all the way out, so I hadn't yet noticed that some of the entries farther down were actually coming in correctly -- i.e., not bold.

Once I saw those, I double-ck'd all.  The ones that came in correctly did NOT (of course) have a bold char style applied, and the rest did (apparently having carried over from the original Word doc even though I thought I cleared all that up). And to further muddy my own waters, as luck would have it, the random titles I had checked, when trying to nail down the problem, just happened to be the ones without the problem.  So, by sheer luck, I missed it altogether.

I have done a search and replace to apply <none> char style to all titles -- they all still look properly bold because of their para styles -- and now the TOC is coming in fine.   I always knew it had to be something I was doing; I just couldn't figure out what. And ironically, in my efforts to find it, I unknowingly ck'd for the problem in titles that had no problem, so missed the actual problem ... yadda, yadda ....

Thanks for all the patience and replies here while I stepped through this morass. Sometimes I just have to write out loud ....