AP - TOC Problems - Wrong Order

[danielschenk]

I have created a Table of Content with two levels in Affinity Publisher. See attached screenshot.

The first level contains chapter headings in red. The chapter headings have been inserted through the Frame Text Tool that was placed in the Master and adjusted on each page with the chapter title and chapter number.

Level two of the TOC contains  section headings, which are subdivisions within a given chapter. These level two headings are reflected in the TOC in black. They are derived from text within the main Frame Text Tool, which is also placed in the Master.    

The problem is with level two headings (sections headings) in the TOC. They appear in the wrong order. For example, the level two heading "INSERT TEST" or "Über dieses eBuch" (About this eBook) or "Mein Ziel" (My Goal) are incorrectly positioned by the Affinity Publisher TOC under the Title Page (Titelblatt) instead of underneath Chapter 1 (Kapitel 1). Likewise, the section about "Wissens Diktatur" (Knowledge Dictatorship) should actually be underneath Chapter 2 (Kapitel 2) instead of underneath Chapter 1.

I have tried different things to find or solve the issue, but to no avail. Any ideas?

Thanks much, Daniel

[walt.farrell]

The order of entries in the TOC is determined by:

1. The spread number, where items on an earlier spread will appear earlier.

2. For items within a spread, e.g. spread 5/6 if you have a Facing Page layout starting on the left: the items lower in the Layers panel will appear before items higher in the Layers panel, because they are assumed to be created earlier.

3. For items within a single Text Frame, items earlier in the frame should be earlier in the TOC.

If that's not enough to help you figure it out I'll need to see more, including at least a screenshot of 5/6 and their Layers panel.

[danielschenk]

Thanks for your suggestions Walt. I have tried a number of things to no avail.

* I checked all layer in the Layers pane. Found a couple of layers with empty elements, e.g., empty text frames, but nothing really noticable.
* I also disconnected the text flow of the last pages to see if that helped. It didn't. 

There seems to be an error pattern though. The errors are consistently occurring throughout the entire e-book when a new chapter starts. Chapter headings are level 1 of the Table of Contents (TOC). It appears that consistently the very last section headings of a chapter is misplaced. It should actually appear at the beginning of the next chapter. This discrepancy occurs in every chapter. The last section heading of each chapter actually appears at the end of the previous chapter, instead of at the beginning of the next chapter, where it actually belongs.

Attached are some screenshots to illustrate. Any ideas? If there were no help here in the forum, where else can I get help on an issue like this? Is there a technical support for Serif or Affinity?

Thanks much. Daniel      

[walt.farrell]

It's hard to tell from the screenshots.

If you could supply a .afpub with a few of the relevant pages that would make it easier to diagnose.

[danielschenk]

Thanks Walt.

I've created a smaller AFPUB file for this e-book and loaded it onto my OneDrive Cloud (Microsoft), since the upload to this forum failed (Error -200). Here's the link:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ah8WcBBukiKinfgcRv9In3faKyfY2A?e=5qky87

I'm also sending a screenshot collage here that shows the way the Table of Contents (TOC) actually shows up (highlighted in red) after clicking on the Update button in the TOC panel. The problem ist that the TOC does not reflect the actual layout on the pages.

Thanks for looking at this. If you can't find any solution, is there anyone at Serif or the Affinity Publisher team that I could call on for help? How would I best contact them?

Best, Daniel  

[Headway]

Would the solution shown in the video help you?

[Chiyonosake013]

Can I ask a similar question on this same thread?  I can't get the different layers to appear in the proper order on the ToC.  Should I just not be using multiple text boxes?  I would think that if I have multiple boxes on the page that it would start from the top of the page and go to the bottom and put them in order of Heading 1 -> Heading 2.  However once it gets to the next section, it has put Heading 2 text boxes above the Heading 1 text box and has the section completely out of order.  What's the best way to fix this?

[Chiyonosake013]

42 minutes ago, Chiyonosake013 said:

Can I ask a similar question on this same thread?  I can't get the different layers to appear in the proper order on the ToC.  Should I just not be using multiple text boxes?  I would think that if I have multiple boxes on the page that it would start from the top of the page and go to the bottom and put them in order of Heading 1 -> Heading 2.  However once it gets to the next section, it has put Heading 2 text boxes above the Heading 1 text box and has the section completely out of order.  What's the best way to fix this?

 

 

Sorry.  Please ignore this.  I missed the earlier reply from Walt

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, Chiyonosake013 said:

 I would think that if I have multiple boxes on the page that it would start from the top of the page and go to the bottom

No. It will start with the lowest frame in the layer stack (see the Layers panel) and work up.

It's a canvas-painting metaphor as used elsewhere in the Affinity suite. Consider a canvas, and a brush. Paint a stroke on the canvas. Paint another that crosses the first one. Look at a cross-section through the overlapping strokes, and the first one you created is lower (closer to the canvas) than the second one. Do, things like in the layer stack are assumed to be fine earlier.