TOC creating spurious entries

[LMinter]

I'm creating a book with various stories.  Each story has a title with the same style in order to create a TOC.   But when I insert or update the top, it adds additional lines for pages that don't have the style.  What am I doing wrong?  

[GarryP]

Without seeing the document this might be difficult to diagnose but I suspect that you may have some empty paragraphs formatted with some styles which are then showing up in the TOC. Try looking at the styles listed in the TOC Panel and setting them OFF one-by-one. Once the ‘spurious’ entries disappear (you might need to refresh the TOC a few times) that might help you find what’s wrong.

[Old Bruce]

I would go to pages 63 and 65 and look for the Paragraph Style (chosen/selected in the ToC panel) in the text frames on those pages. They are most likely simply a return with no text. You will insert the text caret in the first line on Page 63 and then just go down line by line using the keyboard's arrow key. Keep your eye on the Text Styles panel to see the change of Paragraph Style.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

They are most likely simply a return with no text.

I wondered about that, too, but when I tried it the empty (or even blank) lines would not show up in the TOC for me.

[Old Bruce]

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I wondered about that, too, but when I tried it the empty (or even blank) lines would not show up in the TOC for me.

Same here on Mac, I really have to try these things out. I think it was happening in a previous version of Publisher.

18 hours ago, LMinter said:

I'm creating a book with various stories.  Each story has a title with the same style in order to create a TOC.   But when I insert or update the top, it adds additional lines for pages that don't have the style.  What am I doing wrong?  

Have you tried copying the text in the ToC and pasting it into a new frame and then changing all the text colour? It may be that you have the titles with transparency or white for the text colour. I am grasping at straws here. Also try turning on the invisible characters Text > Show Special Characters to see if there is anything there.

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I am grasping at straws here.

Me, too. Without access to the actual file there's often a lot of guessing involved.

[LMinter]

Thank you all for your input.  You helped me find the problem.  From your answers, I got suspicious that every spurious TOC entry had an odd page number, meaning they were all on the right side of the page.   I had set up the Master Page with the Section Name on the right, giving the field the Style needed for the TOC.  When I went back to the Master Page and removed the Style assigned and updated the TOC... voilà.  Perfect!  Again, thank you so much. 

Larry

[walt.farrell]

Thanks for explaining that; it's one to remember