Cannot change Table of Contents font traits or weight

[Tegwyn]

I've got a lengthy Publisher doc making use of a TOC. However, in configuring my TOC entry/heading paragraph styles, it seems it ignores any changes I make to font weight or traits except to turn italics on. I cannot make the font regular or black -- the text remains bold. There is no character style applied, but the toolbar shows bold is set, which must be automatic and overriding styles.

Is anyone else getting this? If it's not readily reproduced, I can provide my file (though Affinity may already have it from other times they've helped me!).

The screenshot has the cursor on one of the TOC 1: Heading 2 items. The toolbar shows bold selected (this was automatic, and if I turn it off, it resets when the TOC is updated) but no character style. The edit text style window shows regular has been selected.

[walt.farrell]

You must edit the Paragraph Text Style to make your change, not the Context Toolbar.

So you'll need to set the Font Weight in that dialog.

[Tegwyn]

@walt.farrell I think that's what I was doing, isn't it? As in the screenshot, I tried editing the paragraph style, but changes to the font traits or weight have no effect on bolding. (They can make it italic, and other style changes work. So, it's just the bold I can't turn off using styles.)

[walt.farrell]

I just tried to duplicate what you have, @Tegwyn, though I don't have that font so I can't do it exactly.

When I change the Font traits in that edit dialog, I see the text within the TOC change immediately. However, the settings in the Context Toolbar do not change until I click OK to save the changes I've made. I'm not sure if that's what you're seeing.

[Tegwyn]

Thanks for experimenting, @walt.farrell. In my case, the text did not become un-bold at all. The only way I could un-bold it was by selecting the text within the text frame and clicking the B in the toolbar. (And then it became bold again the next time I update the ToC.) Paragraph styles had no effect on boldness, even if they affected other things (like which font, whether it's italic, or spacing).

However, I decided to mess around with it more, and now, if I've set the style to normal weight, it un-bolds when I update the ToC! I'm not sure what changed in the meantime. I'm pretty sure I tried that before! (It still does not show the boldness change after clicking OK in the paragraph style editor. It only shows when I update the ToC.)

At any rate, it's workaround-able for me now. I just have to update the ToC after changing the style. Not sure if I just never tried updating after changing the paragraph style, or if something else I did in the document un-stuck whatever was making the ToC bold things.

Edited November 20, 2019 by Tegwyn
clarified when the change applies

[Tegwyn]

Just noticed this in the text styles panel (before I do the workaround). See the description section at the top of the panel: the bold is definitely being applied independently of paragraph and character styles. I'm assuming this is a default behavior of the ToC generator. It's worth noting that, in this case, none of the styles in the hierarchy (TOC Main: Heading 2, TOC Main: Entry, Base) have font traits set. So they're all just inheriting from some default.

When I change Base to explicitly set font traits to Regular, the ToC styles begin to behave more like I expected. I don't even have to modify the ToC styles -- as soon as I update the ToC, all entries stop being bold unless I change a style to explicitly be bold.

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Tegwyn said:

See the description section at the top of the panel: the bold is definitely being applied independently of paragraph and character styles.

That should indicate, I think, that you pressed the B button.

[Tegwyn]

You'd think so, but this happens even if I make a brand new spread and insert a ToC there. It even happens if I make the new spread with no master page.

Since it's not happening for you, something must've just gotten confused in my document somewhere along the line. I'm typing up another comment with how I think it should work, but chances are it already works right for most people. My project is just very unique I guess!

[Tegwyn]

I think what the behavior should be if ToCs are supposed to be bold by default is that...

0. Instead of generating/updating a ToC applying direct "Font weight: Bold" to all entries when the Base style doesn't specify "Font traits"...

1. Generating a ToC should create a "TOC Main: Entry" style with "Font traits" or "Font weight" set to Bold.

2. This allows users to manage ToC boldness more intuitively, as they do with regular text flow.

However, I find that if I make a new document, newly generated ToCs do not bold by default.

In a new document, it's not even possible for me to set Base > Font traits > [No change] without changing the font family from the default. And when I do, newly generated ToCs still do not bold by default. So, I think this is just something that got weird in my doc, probably from importing a bunch of text from a Word docx. I noticed that did all kinds of weird stuff to formatting and styles until I cleaned it up.

Thanks for trying things on your end, walt.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Tegwyn said:

I thinkwhat the behavior should be if ToCs are supposed to be bold by default is that..

They aren't bold by default.

[Tegwyn]

Yeah, as I mentioned in that comment, they aren't bold by default for me in a new document. This surprised me, as I had only really been working in the other one, but it makes sense.

[Seneca]

10 hours ago, Tegwyn said:

Yeah, as I mentioned in that comment, they aren't bold by default for me in a new document. This surprised me, as I had only really been working in the other one, but it makes sense. 

There is definitely something wrong with the TOC. If I delete it and then create a new one the new TOC is all bold.

[Jon P]

It sounds like some default formatting might have been applied? If you want to attach the document I can take a look.

Thanks

[Tegwyn]

@Jon P , if you still have the last file I uploaded / you fixed for me via dropbox, I believe that will exhibit the problem. (I was working on an updated version of that file when I ran into this issue.) If not, I can re-upload later if you want a sample to investigate. Either way, editing the Base style to explicitly set font traits to Regular got around the issue for me, so I'm not in urgent need of a fix.

[Tegwyn]

@Seneca Are you experiencing this on one of your files, too?

[Seneca]

10 hours ago, Jon P said:

It sounds like some default formatting might have been applied? If you want to attach the document I can take a look.

I did check the character formatting and it was all well. I then realised that there might be some formatting applied to the text box. 

This fixed the problem. I should have checked that before sending my comment above.

However, there is one more thing that might be of interest to you.

If you create a table of contents and then run Find and Replace on the whole document (that would include the TOC) then you can't update the TOC anymore (if changes are made to the (TOC).

This might be by design but it seems to me that it's kind of counter-intuitive.

[Tegwyn]

1 hour ago, Seneca said:

I did check the character formatting and it was all well. I then realised that there might be some formatting applied to the text box. 

This fixed the problem. I should have checked that before sending my comment above.

That's really interesting. After you said this, I experimented again. When I make a new spread using a master page, the text frames do not show bold applied in the context toolbar (even if I switch to edit detached). But, when I insert a TOC, it's all bold, and selecting the text frame now shows bold applied in the toolbar.

If I make a new spread with no master page, then select the text frame tool, the context toolbar shows bold applied. Sure enough, if I make a frame and put in a TOC, it's bold. If I deselect bold in the toolbar, then make a frame and put in a TOC, it's normal. If I select the bold frame, then deselect bold, the TOC is no longer bold and remains so when I update the TOC.

I didn't even realize the text frame tool had text formatting settings for the frame itself because they don't show in the text frame studio -- just the context toolbar. But I guess somewhere along the line, the tool got set to bold and was remembering it.

Bug(?): When the text frame tool is set to bold, creating a spread from a master page will cause the text frames it inherits from the master page to be set to bold even if they aren't bold on the master page itself. At least, this happens to me in this one file. I wouldn't think the current state of the tool should affect inherited frames -- only frames you create with the tool.