Table of Contents Nightmare

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff

Help! I'm trying to generate a table of contents for a 25 page document
created with Word 2003. When the TOC is generated, it is spread over several
non-adjacent pages and no matter what I try, I can't get it to appear on
just one page. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Thanks for the info but the site contains the same steps I used to create a
TOC. The problem is that once I generate it, it is spread over many
non-adjacent pages. Right now, I'm trying to manually create one. :(

Jeff


garfield-n-odie said:
Word MVP Shauna Kelly's website
Click to expand...
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/toc/CreateATOC.html contains a good article
about how to create a table of contents. If you have numbered headings in
your document, also read the other articles on this page about "Numbering,
bullets, headings, and outlines".
 
Have you added manual page breaks immediately preceding the headings
included in the TOC... and if so, are those breaks also formatted with the
heading style? If that's the problem, remove the manual page breaks and
define your heading styles to include 'Page Break Before' instead.
 
Sorry, bro, don't know what to tell you. I'm still wondering about the
NON-adjacent pages in the TOC. What Jezebel said about page breaks
would still make the TOC appear on consecutive pages.
 
You've misunderstood me. If you format your Heading 1 style as 'Page Break
Before' you don't get any page breaks in the TOC. Those headings, in the
TOC, are formatted with the TOC 1 style which doesn't inherit the page break
unless you base TOC 1 on Heading 1.
 
Hi, Jezebel. I was referring to what you said about manual page breaks
before Heading 1 styles being formatted as Heading 1 also.
 
Hi All,

Yes, there were manual page breaks before some of the headings (it is a
rather complex document). I'll examine the document later - I just finished
creating a TOC manually.

Thanks!

Jeff
 
Hi both

This seems to be one of those now you see it, now you don't problems ;-)
Every time I test this, I can't make it occur. But there have been
sufficient posts here, and times I've seen it happen in documents I've been
reformatting, to know that Word will sometimes include a manual page break
inserted before a heading as an item in its own right, or get the page
numbering wrong based on where the page break is, or some other daftness
like duplicating an entry.

I'm sure it has something to do with what gets caught into the hidden
bookmark that is (re) created when Word builds TOCs. Obviously what happens
when Word is working 'correctly' is that the page break at the start of a
heading is left outside, despite 'logically' being styled as part of the
heading. If you insert a page break at the start of a heading it will be put
inside any bookmark that exists - but normally when Word remakes the TOC it
puts the bookmark back in the right place. Except when it doesn't.

The best solution is definitely to use 'page break before', which avoids the
issue altogether. If you do have to use manual page breaks you need to be
particularly careful to update the TOC fully (not just page numbers) and to
check the result.

Beats me why Word uses 'wrap around' bookmarks at all for TOCs and X-refs,
when you are marking the paragraph, not its current text. The TOC rebuild is
just a workaround, and doesn't apply to X-refs, alas, where it is only too
common to find the references expanded to include whatever got inserted
before the heading.
 
None of that explains why a TOC would be spread over "non-adjacent" pages,
though.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Yes, you're right - a single page break before a heading couldn't produce
that effect (unless perhaps combined with the duplicate entry problem I have
seen). I wonder whether it could be an odd page section break that has
become marked with a heading style and is being regurgitated in the TOC in
this case?

Or maybe I am just on the wrong track here and it's something like huge text
boxes in the headers and footers preventing any printing on even or odd
pages in this section?
 
garfield-n-odie said:
I think I figured it out in my sleep last night...
Click to expand...

I guessed you must be one of the cursed too, condemned to receive Word
inspirons every night ...

<g>
 
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