How do I add a dotted line to a TOC in Affinity Publisher?

[Norway4T]

I bought my third Affinity product a few days ago (GREAT, AREN'T THEY!), and I'm right at it with creating my first white paper.

I have watched all the video tutorials, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw (indeed IF I saw) how to format a Table of Content. I went back to the TOC video tutorial, but all the presenter showed us was two TOC styles, but nothing about how you actually tweak them and nothing about how to add a dotted line in a Table Of Content between a content (Heading 1) and the page number.

I thought maybe the answer lay in the Paragraph > Tab Stops section, but when I went there (while my TOC paragraph text was selected), the box where you can add characters to fill between tab stops was greyed out, making it impossible to change. Besides, in the greyed out field it looked like there was a "." there already.

I know there is probably a simple solution and that I'm asking a lame question, but there you are: I'M A NEWBIE!

[Murfee]

Hi @Norway4T, have you tried going to the Text Style for the TOC? If you select or just have your cursor in the TOC text, go to the Tab Stop section, add a new stop and make this a tab stop right alignment, now you should be able to select the character for this stop.

Not sure why your Tab Stop was greyed out in the Paragraph section, I haven't seen that happen, I am on a Mac so perhaps it is a Windows issue??

[GarryP]

To add to what Murfee said above, my attached image should give you what you need.
Note the change in the “Tab Stop Leader” character outlined in red.

[Norway4T]

Murfee & GarryP - KUDOS!

Using the combined tutoring from bot of you, the result was: PROBLEM SOLVED! I had to select both tab stop right alignment and tab stop leader character, and there it was!

THANK YOU! You guys really saved the day!!!

[Murfee]

You are welcome Norway4T, glad you are sorted. Keep safe and well.

[Norway4T]

Murfee - You too, Brother! As a matter of fact, the white paper I am working on is a synopsis of Dr. Thomas E. Levy's LIFESAVER of a book, called "Primal Panacea", with additional notes of my own. "Primal Panacea" explains the various properties and routes of administration of Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), and how medical doctors (trained in Orthomolecular Medicine) regularly use Vitamin C to prevent, put into remission, and even cure AIDS/HIV, Ebola, Encephalitis, Hepatitis, Herpes, Pneumonia, Polio, Shingles, Swine Flu, Corona vira including COVID-19. Research now suggests that Liposomal Vitamin C is even slightly more effective than intravenous Vitamin C. You should read the book. I have studied Medical Biology and Medicine, and even I find this book solid with nearly 1,300 references! If governments weren't bought by the pharmaceutical industry, the Corona virus COVID-19 would have been stop cold in its tracks with Vitamin C treatment.

[Murfee]

I have always been a big believer in Vitamin C, I have also harvested and used rose hips for many years 😀

[Norway4T]

Murfee - Then I guarantee you will absolutely love "Primal Panacea" by Dr. Thomas E. Levy! It is a Gold Mine of information. I've worked with Orthomolecular Medicine since 1997, but even I picked up new knowledge by reading it. We've got nothing to worry about with this knowledge. Now I am working on pushing this message by using Affinity Publisher, Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer!

Thank you again for your help with the tabs in the TOC! Have a great & healthy weekend!

[Sabz]

Hi everyone, I have used this method to create dotted lines in my table of contents. The only problem is that every time I refresh/reload my table of contents, all the dots disappear and I have to manually press 'tab' on each line to recreate the lines. Is that just how it needs to be? Or am I missing a step or strategy that might prevent this? Many thanks!

[GarryP]

If you set the TOC Text Style correctly then, when you refresh the TOC, the TOC should be rebuilt with the styles you set intact.

If this is not happening for you then we will probably need an example document that we can check (otherwise it could take a long time to go through all of the possible ‘variables’ one-by-one).

[Sabz]

No problem at all. I'm leaving some screenshots here, but if you need the document itself, please let me know where I can upload it. The second screenshot is after I have refreshed the TOC. As you can see all the formatting has been lost.

[GarryP]

Thanks for the screenshots but I can’t see the Text Style settings from those, and it will take lots of screenshots to show them all.

If you are okay with the document being seen by everyone then you can simply attach it to your post.

If you don’t want to share the document in public then you may need to ask a moderator to supply a Dropbox location so they can look at it in private (which may take a while to come about given holidays, etc.)

Note 1: It looks like you may have been formatting the text in the TOC after the TOC has been created and, if so, that’s the wrong way round. To format the TOC properly you need to edit the Text Styles that the TOC is using. These TOC Text Styles are only available in the Text Style Panel when you double-click in one of the TOC Frame Text layers.

Note 2: You don’t need the Publisher Beta any more as it’s older than the latest release of Publisher.

[Sabz]

Thanks so much Garry and happy New year! I'm not sure if moderators will see this thread, but if so, could I ask for a Dropbox location? I'm not comfortable to upload the whole document here. No problem re holiday delays. 🙏

 

[Dan C]

Hi @Sabz,

Apologies for the delay here! You can upload your file to the following link for me - 

https://www.dropbox.com/request/Lw8Bf9ptXWy5TfalALLM

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know.

Please also note the following from Garry, as this is the usual cause for TOCs updating unexpectedly

On 12/31/2022 at 12:43 PM, GarryP said:

Note 1: It looks like you may have been formatting the text in the TOC after the TOC has been created and, if so, that’s the wrong way round. To format the TOC properly you need to edit the Text Styles that the TOC is using. These TOC Text Styles are only available in the Text Style Panel when you double-click in one of the TOC Frame Text layers.

[Sabz]

19 hours ago, Dan C said:

Hi @Sabz,

Apologies for the delay here! You can upload your file to the following link for me - 

https://www.dropbox.com/request/Lw8Bf9ptXWy5TfalALLM

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know.

Please also note the following from Garry, as this is the usual cause for TOCs updating unexpectedly

Thanks Dan, and no problem about the delay! So maybe before I send you the document, I should have a go at fixing that issue myself. How would I go about finding out if I have formatted the text in the TOC after the TOC has been created? And if I have done that, how would I go about fixing it? Many thanks.

[GarryP]

If you have formatted the text after the TOC has been created/updated then some (or all) of that formatting will be replaced by updating the TOC.
To get the TOC back to how it should be, with the ‘proper’ formatting, just update it via the relevant button in the TOC Panel.

Once you have done that, double-click in the TOC Frame Text layer and you will see, in the Text Styles Panel, the styles which are used to format the TOC.
You can change any of these styles as you wish, same as you would with any other text style, and when you update the TOC the software will format the text using those styles.

Note: For the formatting to be re-applied you need to change the style, not just change the formatting directly to the text.

[Sabz]

Okay, I'm not sure what the issue is here, but I can't even select or click into the first page of my TOC (the following pages are okay). I can see that I have modified master pages at some point, but I can't figure out how to fix that. I'm not sure if any of these issues are connected to one another? Also my 'edit all layers' is turned on. So technically I should be able to click on the text in that page without having to select the layer every time...?

 

[GarryP]

The little blue Xs at the corners/sides of the layer mean that either the layer is locked or it is on a master page.
I can’t see a lock icon on that layer in the Layers Panel so I think your first TOC text frame is on a master page.

To edit the contents of that layer you will need to be editing the master page/spread. See the Help for instructions about master pages/spreads.
(Personally I wouldn’t recommend putting TOC text frames on a master page/spread as I wouldn’t think of the TOC as being part of the ‘body’ of a document (where master pages are generally more useful). But that's maybe just me.)

However, you seem to have a lot of layers on that master page/spread so I can’t really tell what’s going on from the screenshot.
One of the staff may be able to have more luck if you send them the document as requested above (if the dropbox link is still active).

[Sabz]

Thanks Gary, I'm not sure what's going on really. There is a master page applied to all pages with TOC on them. But the table of content isn't part of the master page, if that's what you mean. And it's definitely not locked either, as far as I can tell. I will go ahead and send the document tomorrow then...