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I am trying to learn to use TOC's effectively so I created this very simple TOC work.afpub file. The content does not matter here, just the text styles that show when the TOC on page 1 is selected:

936364648_TOCStyles.jpg.fdb1e15a243f65c2d34a0b769c80d61c.jpg

My confusion is centered on why there are two TOC 1:Entry paragraph styles listed (one of which I renamed "TOC Entry Style?" but that does not appear in the list).

A separate issue is why TOC 1:Heading 1 includes a "+hyperlink" as shown above. If I click the 'reset formatting' icon it goes away, but it keeps coming back.

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6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A separate issue is why TOC 1:Heading 1 includes a "+hyperlink" as shown above. If I click the 'reset formatting' icon it goes away, but it keeps coming back.

This I think I have some sort of answer that is somewhat logical. It is probably there so If we want to export as a PDF and include the bookmarks/ToC functionality in the PDF.

The ToC capability is poorly implemented and or thought out. This is just me but, I like to define styles before putting any text in. I have no idea if there is any way to get my defined styles to be used by the ToC, I have pretty much given up on it. I'll generate the ToC copy and paste it into a new document and then do my styling of that raw text, and finally copy and paste it back. I lose the ability to have the ToC as hyperlinks in a PDF though.

The ToC is a major source of frustration for me and has been since it was introduce. I haven't had much chance to play around with the Indexing styles but I'll wager it is a similar mess.

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I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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30 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A separate issue is why TOC 1:Heading 1 includes a "+hyperlink" as shown above. If I click the 'reset formatting' icon it goes away, but it keeps coming back

Perhaps because all TOC entries are automatically made hyperlinks, do you can click then in an exported PDF and use them for navigation?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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Just now, Old Bruce said:

This is just me but, I like to define styles before putting any text in. I have no idea if there is any way to get my defined styles to be used by the ToC

No, there is not. You must generate the TOC and then set up the style you want by modifying the TOC text styles that Publisher creates.

2 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I'll generate the ToC copy and paste it into a new document and then do my styling of that raw text, and finally copy and paste it back.

Why? Just modify the text styles in place.

-- Walt
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So does anyone have any thoughts on why why there are two TOC 1:Entry paragraph styles, or why even after I renamed one the changed name does not show up in the Text Styles list?

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2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So does anyone have any thoughts on why why there are two TOC 1:Entry paragraph styles, or why even after I renamed one the changed name does not show up in the Text Styles list?

Away from the computer. May have some later.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
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    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
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16 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So does anyone have any thoughts on why why there are two TOC 1:Entry paragraph styles, or why even after I renamed one the changed name does not show up in the Text Styles list?

I have lots of thoughts about how the ToC management is set up, none of them suitable for family viewing. And my lawyers (Short, Brutal and Nasty) say they cross over into libel and defamation.

I have noticed that TOC 1:Entry will sometimes persist after I have deleted the content and regenerated a ToC again.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Nope; no ideas on the multiple TOC 1: Entry text styles.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
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    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
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15 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

The ToC is a major source of frustration for me and has been since it was introduce. I haven't had much chance to play around with the Indexing styles but I'll wager it is a similar mess.

FYI. The Index styles work quite well. You have to let AfPub generate its own styles but then you can edit them as required. My index is properly formatted with the exception of the style override bug (the ability to have the page number for one entry formatted differently). So you can't currently do this:
Doe, John      28, 171, 189

But other than that the index styles work fine.

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16 hours ago, R C-R said:

My confusion is centered on why there are two TOC 1:Entry paragraph styles listed (one of which I renamed "TOC Entry Style?" but that does not appear in the list).

You have two TOC 1:Entry styles because you tried to rename this style. AfPub should not allow you to edit this name because it's not editable. If you edit it (which as you noted doesn't appear changed in the style panel but does when you re-edit it) and then update the TOC, you will now have a duplicate style. Long story short, don't edit TOC style names, it doesn't work and it's pointless. The same could be true for Index styles.

16 hours ago, R C-R said:

A separate issue is why TOC 1:Heading 1 includes a "+hyperlink" as shown above. If I click the 'reset formatting' icon it goes away, but it keeps coming back.

All TOC styles have hyperlink as a style override for PDF export. The same is true for Index page numbers, they automatically have a hyperlink style override. Just ignore this, it does no harm.

FYI, there is one big difference between TOC and Index styles - adding an index will add the index styles to the main list of text styles in your document. Adding a TOC is a bit nicer, the TOC styles don't appear in the main list of text styles and appear in the Text Styles panel only when you're editing the TOC. This is great because you can insert multiple TOCs, each with its own styles, and it would be very annoying to have so many styles in your main list of text styles. Maybe the same will be done for Index styles someday if support is added for multiple indices.

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1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Long story short, don't edit TOC style names, it doesn't work and it's pointless.

This sounds like a bug to me.

Also, the two TOC 1: Entry styles are not the same. It is easy to see this if you select the TOC txt frame & then click on each of them in turn in the Text Styles panel. (The second one, which I wanted to use, has tab stop leaders; the first does not.)

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18 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

You must generate the TOC and then set up the style you want by modifying the TOC text styles that Publisher creates.

But it seems that you cannot modify the name of an automatically generated TOC text style without causing problems, so you are stuck with those default names.

I am also struggling to understand why, even when I avoid the duplication that occurs when I try to rename a TOC style, that I get two different TOC paragraph styles, like in the above screenshot where I have both a TOC 1: Heading 1 & a TOC 1: Entry style. Why do I need two?

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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

This sounds like a bug to me.

Or it may be down to poor design choices made for some reason since lost/forgotten.

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Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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6 hours ago, R C-R said:

But it seems that you cannot modify the name of an automatically generated TOC text style without causing problems, so you are stuck with those default names.

Correct. You can modify the settings of the styles, but that's all.

 

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

where I have both a TOC 1: Heading 1 & a TOC 1: Entry style. Why do I need two?

Edit: Sorry, my description was reversed originally. I've changed it now.

TOC 1: Entry is the overall style used for each entry.

TOC 1: Heading 1 is the style for entries created by Heading 1 headings, and should be based on TOC1: Entry.

 

-- Walt
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2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

TOC 1: Entry is the style used for the text portion of the entry. There's another one for the page number part of the entry.

They all control different aspects of the entry.

The confusing thing about that is "TOC 1: Entry" is a paragraph style, while the page number part is a character style. Shouldn't they both be character styles?

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44 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The confusing thing about that is "TOC 1: Entry" is a paragraph style, while the page number part is a character style. Shouldn't they both be character styles?

No, TOC 1: Entry has to be a paragraph if you want to control things like leading. Page number only needs to be a character style.

I believe this is the full list of styles generated by AfPub for Tables of Contents (where # is the number of the TOC, e.g. 1 in the first TOC inserted)

  • para style: TOC #: Entry - base style, not directly applied to anything.
  • para style: TOC #: Heading 1, based on TOC #: Entry - applied to level 1 headings.
  • para style: TOC #: Heading 2, based on TOC #: Entry - applied to level 2 headings. Etc.
  • char style: TOC #: Number - base style, not directly applied to anything.
  • char style: TOC #: Heading 1 Number, based on TOC #: Number - applied to level 1 page numbers.
  • char style: TOC #: Heading 2 Number, based on TOC #: Number - applied to level 1 page numbers. Etc.

Where as for Indices, AfPub generates:

  • para style: Index - base style, not directly applied to anything.
  • para style: Index Section Heading, based on Index - used for the optional A, B, C... headings.
  • para style: Index Entry, based on Index - another base style, not directly applied to anything.
  • para style: Index Entry 1, based on Index Entry - applied to main topic entries.
  • para style: Index Entry 2, based on Index Entry - applied to sub topics.
  • char style: Index Entry Page Number - applied to all page numbers, not based on anything.
  • char style: Index Cross-reference - applied to the "See" or "See also" text.
  • char style: Index Cross-referenced Topic - applied to the See/See Also topic referred to.

This all makes sense but there are inconsistencies:

  • Why do TOC styles get segregated into a separate list of styles available only when you need them while the more numerous Index styles clutter up your main text style list?
  • Why does TOC #: Entry have a colon while Index Entry does not? (IMO it's better without a colon)
  • Why does Index Entry 1 include the word Entry while TOC #: Heading 1 does not? (IMO, the latter should be TOC #: Entry 1 for consistency)
  • Why does Index Entry Page Number include the word Page while TOC #: Heading 1 Number does not? (IMO, shorter is better along Page does add clarity)

 

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39 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I believe this is the full list of styles generated by AfPub for Tables of Contents (where # is the number of the TOC, e.g. 1 in the first TOC inserted)

Which is what I think is needlessly complicated, particularly when combined with the rename bug so there are actually even more styles.

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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Which is what I think is needlessly complicated, particularly when combined with the rename bug so there are actually even more styles.

If you think there are too many styles then it's a good thing they didn't add one more layer of base styles to simplify formatting of multiple TOCs. The ultimate TOC style implementation would have included a base TOC style on which TOC 1: Entry, TOC 2: Entry, etc are based. This would have let you change the formatting of all of your TOCs at once.

I have no quibble with the number of styles - this is what's needed to give us full control over the formatting of multiple TOCs and the single Index and I really want the full control. And it only generates the styles your TOC or index needs. I do wish the names were more consistent and of course they need to fix the bug with renaming the generated styles. And the index styles should be hidden in the Text Styles panel when the insertion point isn't in the index, just like the TOC styles are.

Serif took a very different approach than Adobe when it comes to creating TOC and Index styles. Adobe lets you create your own styles while Affinity automatically generates the styles for you as a starting point. If you're familiar with InDesign and created your styles first then this will be frustrating but for most people Serif's automatic approach is better. However, the style names may not be what you expect, are confusing if Show Hierarchical is off, and aren't documented so even an experienced user has to play around with the styles to learn how they work. Once you understand it then the style set up is a breeze. Perhaps a future version of AfPub could retain the automatically-generated styles which is nicer than InDesign but add a dialog to swap out those styles for your own if you prefer that approach. Then you'd have the best of both worlds.

I'm hoping for support for multiple indices someday, although that will bring more text style complexity.

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16 hours ago, MikeTO said:

And it only generates the styles your TOC or index needs.

But look at this ultra-simple TOC work 2.afpub file. Note that even though the Text Styles panel is set to hierarchical, there are no heading styles based on TOC: Entry or TOC: Heading number. This is because I have set TOC: Heading to be based on [No Style] & done the same for TOC: Number.

14444446_textstyles2.jpg.4c4163510bf54368cf987de36994f115.jpg

I can get rid of the TOC: Entry & TOC: Number styles by using the "Delete Unused Styles" panel option but why should I have to contend with either para or char 'base' style unless I really want to use them?

Something else: it is possible to set the next style of TOC: Heading to any style in the document, including one named simply "TOC." Why is this even there?

1120400783_edit2.jpg.5f68e040dcc5003aa9bb4c25bc831614.jpg

A third thing: try selecting the TOC text frame layer with the Move Tool so all of it is selected. Now try to click on the TOC: Heading item in the Text Styles panel. Because it is not possible to select just the para style, if you do that the whole TOC goes to bold 20 pt because the TOC: Heading number is set to bold 20 pt. 

There is more to it but basically the whole TOC implementation needs to be reworked.

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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Note that even though the Text Styles panel is set to hierarchical, there are no heading styles based on TOC: Entry or TOC: Heading number. This is because I have set TOC: Heading to be based on [No Style] & done the same for TOC: Number.

Went are you fighting so hard to change the way the TOC styles are setup? You'll be much better off learning how to use what Publisher provides, and make small tweaks to what it gives you. You cannot completely redesign those styles, and shouldn't try.

-- Walt
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3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Went are you fighting so hard to change the way the TOC styles are setup?

I am just 'fighting' to understand why they are set up as they are, because that makes it difficult to learn how best to use them. And it is not just the rename bug that is a problem. The TOC style naming conventions leave a lot to be desired & the help topics do little to explain what they are intended for. Some of the style options do not seem to have any useful purpose or effect for anything besides very complex multilevel TOC's. It is far to easy to click on a Text Style panel entry with a TOC selected & change everything in it.

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I agree with Walt, you'll need to use them as intended and trying to rename them will only bring you grief. The notes I provided on what each style is for is probably the best available help documentation. In fact, it would be helpful if a cleaned-up version of those notes were added to the help system as it lacks documentation on the generated styles.

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19 hours ago, R C-R said:

I am just 'fighting' to understand why they are set up as they are, because that makes it difficult to learn how best to use them. And it is not just the rename bug that is a problem. The TOC style naming conventions leave a lot to be desired & the help topics do little to explain what they are intended for. Some of the style options do not seem to have any useful purpose or effect for anything besides very complex multilevel TOC's. It is far to easy to click on a Text Style panel entry with a TOC selected & change everything in it.

Basically, don't try to change the names, or the hierarchical structure. You can change details of each style, though.

Let's look at @MikeTO's summary above:

On 7/22/2021 at 5:43 PM, MikeTO said:

I believe this is the full list of styles generated by AfPub for Tables of Contents (where # is the number of the TOC, e.g. 1 in the first TOC inserted)

  • para style: TOC #: Entry - base style, not directly applied to anything.
  • para style: TOC #: Heading 1, based on TOC #: Entry - applied to level 1 headings.
  • para style: TOC #: Heading 2, based on TOC #: Entry - applied to level 2 headings. Etc.
  • char style: TOC #: Number - base style, not directly applied to anything.
  • char style: TOC #: Heading 1 Number, based on TOC #: Number - applied to level 1 page numbers.
  • char style: TOC #: Heading 2 Number, based on TOC #: Number - applied to level 1 page numbers. Etc.

If you wanted to:

  1. Change the font for the entire TOC that is known as TOC 1: Change it in TOC 1: Entry.
  2. But to change the font only for the Heading 1 entries: Change it in TOC 1: Heading 1.
  3. If you wanted to change the leading for the entire TOC: Change it in TOC 1: Entry.
  4. But to change it only for the Heading 2 entries: Change it in TOC 1: Heading 2
  5. If you wanted to change the style of the page numbers for the entire TOC: Change it in TOC 1: Number.
  6. But to change it only for the Heading 1 entries: Change it in TOC 1: Heading 1 Number.

Guidelines:

  • Accept that you need to use the styles defined by Publisher, without changing their names or their hierarchical nature.
  • When you need to change the appearance of something, find the style that affects the item you want to change.
  • Change the characteristics of that style (font, leading, indentation, tab stops); anything you want to change except the style name or the defined hierarchy.

-- Walt
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PC:
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    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Guidelines:

  • Accept that you need to use the styles defined by Publisher, without changing their names or their hierarchical nature.
  • When you need to change the appearance of something, find the style that affects the item you want to change.
  • Change the characteristics of that style (font, leading, indentation, tab stops); anything you want to change except the style name or the defined hierarchy.

If I should not change either the name or hierarchy then the app should not allow me to do that -- that it does is bad design. I also do not really understand why I should not change the hierarchy if I just want to use a very simple TOC like in my second TOC work document. Isn't the idea that the app should be adaptable to what I want rather than forcing me to adapt to some arbitrary & poorly defined restrictions?

"Find the style" sounds like you are suggesting a trial & error workflow. That is not an efficient way to work.

If nothing else, the documentation needs a lot of improvement & they could do a better job of naming the 'base' TOC styles so their function was more obvious.

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50 minutes ago, R C-R said:

"Find the style" sounds like you are suggesting a trial & error workflow. That is not an efficient way to work.

Through practice and learning your work will become more efficient. We are not on their thread taking about efficiency of working, but about learning.

Learning can come via the Help, the Tutorials, experimentation, and asking questions here.

Ideally the Help would be better, but as it's not there are many areas where we depend on the learning approaches.

-- Walt
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PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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