Publisher keeps telling me I have multiple indexes

[bawilliamson]

To my knowledge I only have ONE index in a 180 page book I am creating and editing with Affinity Publisher.

My current index is not syncing properly with changes to layout pages. When I erase the existing index from the index section in my document and try to insert a new index I keep getting the baffling message "You can not have multiple indexes". What's going on here? I've already thrown away an extensive index once because it just got too crazy understanding how the process works. 

I'm willing to start the index from scratch again, but only if I first understand (1) what I am doing wrong, and/or (2) if these Indexing SNAFUs are just persistent bugs or illogical procedures in the app itself.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me with this topic. 

[Old Bruce]

You may have a frame that held an earlier index still present in the document.

[bawilliamson]

But how do I FIND that or any other frames that have Index material in them?! THAT is what's driving me crazy about my Index problem. I can't find any way to LOCATE ALL OF THOSE EXTRA FRAMES! I did accidentally find one that I discarded, but apparently more are scattered around. How do I find all those extra frames? Thanks. 

[Dan C]

Hi @bawilliamson,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please  provide a copy of your .afpub file so that we can look into this further for you?

If you require a private upload link for this, please simply let me know here

[Dennison]

I'm having much the same issue with v1214.

All Text Frames that have once contained the Index (TOC and Index) have been deleted.

New Text Frames drawn on the pages.

Still will not allow a new Index to be inserted.

 

There is also an issue with TOC Text Styles, but I'll post separately about that.

 

[MikeTO]

On 1/20/2022 at 5:00 PM, bawilliamson said:

But how do I FIND that or any other frames that have Index material in them?! THAT is what's driving me crazy about my Index problem. I can't find any way to LOCATE ALL OF THOSE EXTRA FRAMES! I did accidentally find one that I discarded, but apparently more are scattered around. How do I find all those extra frames? Thanks. 

7 hours ago, Dennison said:

I'm having much the same issue with v1214.

All Text Frames that have once contained the Index (TOC and Index) have been deleted.

New Text Frames drawn on the pages.

Still will not allow a new Index to be inserted.

What has most likely happened is that you deleted most but not all of the index. Even if there's a single space or carriage return remaining that was part of the index then Publisher will think the index still exists.

The easiest way to fix this is to update the index, which would restore all of its text so you can see it, and then delete it properly. There's another bug with indices in that the Update feature doesn't work if it's placed in a text frame on a master page layer, but let's assume your index is in a text frame that's not on a master page. Open the Index studio and click the Update button. The text should be restored in whatever text frame it was placed into so that you can now delete it.

If your index is in a text frame on a master page layer and can't use the Update button then the best way to find that stray index character or carriage return is to use Find. Enter no text into the Find field but instead click the Gear and choose Paragraph Style > Index Entry 1. Click Find. Hopefully that will find the stray character. If that doesn't work, try Index Entry 2 and Index Section Heading.

If neither of these tricks work then there truly is no user-editable index left in your document and you should send it to Serif for review as Dan suggested.

[MikeTO]

Hmm, the Index Update bug appears to be fixed but I don't recall seeing that in the release notes. Therefore either trick should, um, do the trick.

Although you can insert an index into a text frame shared with any other text, just like in Microsoft Word and other apps, Publisher doesn't highlight the index when you choose Text > Highlight Fields like MS Word does so it's difficult to know where an index starts and ends. To avoid these sorts of issues I place my index and tables of contents into separate text frames. If I want to place a title before them I type that into a separate text frame.

[Dennison]

Thank you MikeTO.  Problem solved - though not exactly in the way you suggested.

I'll detail it here as it may be useful if this is encountered by others.

Previously - I deleted ALL the text frames that had had either Index or TOC. (One day, the Index had unexpectedly replaced the TOC completely in the Text Frames at the front of the book!)

Then I added new Text Frames for the TOC at the front of the book and for the Index at the back of the book.  Did this twice. Kept being told cannot have 2 Indices.

I did Search - Paragraph - Index et al  = "no results found"

This morning - following your suggestion that Page Masters might be involved, I deleted all the Text Frames on all the TOC and Index pages AND cleared ALL the Masters for those pages.  Then added fresh Text Frames - voila = TOC at the front ofd the book and Index at the back!

Seems to me that there is some sort of bug.

 

Thank you for your help.

[Dennison]

The mystery deepens.

I have now succeeded in having the same index appear TWICE in the same book.

After getting the TOC at the front and the Index at the back, I updated the TOC (being very careful to keep away from Update Index).

When I now look at the TOC, it has been replaced by 1) the Index and 2) Chapter Headings only.  Meanwhile the Index is still at the back of the book.

 

When I've updated the TOC before it has sometimes switched to the Index and I assumed it was my carelessness. This time I know I never touched the Index or Update Index.

Clearly something in the app is amiss.

 

[Old Bruce]

I would guess that the Paragraph Styles for the Index entries are being read by the ToC.

In the actual index place the text cursor in the line active ventilation. See also... and write down what the paragraph style is, expand the name in the Text Styles to see if there is anything added to what ever the style is. What you are looking for is a Paragraph Style that is listed in the ToC Paragraph Styles.

 

[Dennison]

Thank you. I've followed through, if my understanding is correct.  Nothing untoward found in either Text Styles for TOC or Index.  See screenshots.

[Dennison]

Update on this (something does seem to be weird):

Update TOC - front of book

Insert Index - back of book = displays Index BUT TOC reverts to Chapter Headings only

Update TOC = correct TOC restored, no effect on Index

 

[Dennison]

Here we are two months later and this serious bug persists - being unable to include or update an index in a publisher app I contend, or if updated replaces TOC,  is serious.

Tried all the suggested workarounds - nothing works as yet.

• Find and replace - Paragraph Style - Index et al - nothing found
• deleted all TOC and Index text frames
• cleared all Masters from pages that had had TOC or Index text frames
• save, close, restart app - no change.

Any suggestions.

Production on two commercial books is now stopped!

 

Thanks.

[MikeTO]

On 4/1/2022 at 6:50 AM, Dennison said:

Here we are two months later and this serious bug persists - being unable to include or update an index in a publisher app I contend, or if updated replaces TOC,  is serious.

Can you share a screenshot of your TOC panel? What styles are checked in the panel?

 

[Dennison]

Right now the file has no TOC - I deleted all four in the book and the text frames and cleared and reapplied the Master Pages to those pages.

Still can't add or update an Index because APub says there already is an index - but Find finds nothing to do with an index.

Production on two commercial books has stalled because of this serious bug.

 

Somehow Index and TOC are not working correctly. updating Index screws up two but not all four TOC

TOC text styles change randomly - from left indent set at 18 to suddenly 660 pt.

 

 

[MikeTO]

9 hours ago, Dennison said:

Still can't add or update an Index because APub says there already is an index - but Find finds nothing to do with an index.

You didn't delete the entire index - even if it's not visible, there is at least one character of it left somewhere in the document. If I delete my entire index but leave a single space or worse, a single carriage return, the index is still there but invisible.

Regardless of how you got into this situation, finding it depends on what remains of the index. Searching for Index Entry 1, 2, or 3 is the best way but if you selected the text containing the stray index character or carriage return and made it into Body text, there will no longer be a way to search for it with Find.

I hope your index was in a frame that was on a regular page and not in a frame inherited from a master page. If it's on a regular page, you can just click Update Index and that character or CR will be replaced by the full index so it will be easy to find. If you can't see it for whatever reason, it will be reformatted with the index styles so you can now just search for Index Entry 1 again. However, if the index was in a frame that was inherited from a master page, you're out of luck because the Update Index button doesn't work with a frame inherited from a master page (an old bug that hasn't been fixed yet).

I can think of only one way to solve this now - delete all the text in any frame that might have contained the index. If there's text in them you need to keep, use Select All, Copy, and Delete, and with the text in the clipboard, paste it into another app. In that app use Select All and Copy and then paste it back into Publisher. This process will remove the hidden index character or CR but you'll have to fix up all the formatting again. Before you reformat it, check if this solved the problem. If it didn't, undo the deletion and try the same thing with the text in another frame or series or linked frames likely to have contained the index. But that stray character or CR is there somewhere. Good luck!

The real problem is that Publisher has no way to see an index like some other apps. I really like the way MS Word handles it with a shaded background. I think Text > Highlight Fields should shade the background of TOCs and indices.

[Dennison]

Thanks Mike.

just to be clear:

• Text frames NOT on Master Pages
• ALL text frames on ALL pages with TOCs (4) and Index deleted
• ALL pages with either TOC or Index - Master page cleared and reset
• app closed and Mac restarted after each action

one change:

on Friday pm - Text - showed BOTH Insert Index and Update Index at the same time (instead of one being greyed out)

Monday am - Text - shows only Update Index  (however all Text Frames that had contained the Index have long since been deleted)

 

 

[MikeTO]

5 minutes ago, Dennison said:

on Friday pm - Text - showed BOTH Insert Index and Update Index at the same time (instead of one being greyed out)

Monday am - Text - shows only Update Index  (however all Text Frames that had contained the Index have long since been deleted)

Insert Index is only greyed out when the insertion point (text cursor) is in the index. If it's in normal text it's not greyed out even if you already have an index present. The icon state is meaningless. Update Index is only greyed out when an index doesn't exist.

11 minutes ago, Dennison said:

• Text frames NOT on Master Pages
• ALL text frames on ALL pages with TOCs (4) and Index deleted
• ALL pages with either TOC or Index - Master page cleared and reset
• app closed and Mac restarted after each action

I understand you deleted the index, but I think that a teeny tiny part of it has been left behind. There are multiple ways this can happen, not all of them obvious.

If you can't insert an index because it says you already have one and if the text frames containing the index weren't on a master page the Update Index button should work. Add an index marker for something unique like "CRAZY", click Update Index, then search your document for "CRAZY". There should be two occurrences, one where you inserted the marker and one in the index.

If that doesn't work the only way to fix this is the solution I suggested which I know is painful. I'm not suggesting you lose all your formatting and start over. Just divide and conquer to find the stray index character using a backup copy. Assuming your book is made up of multiple stories (series of linked frames), copy the text from the first story into something like MS Word, and paste it back in, overwriting every character of the story - ensure you use Select All to get it all. You'll lose the formatting, inline pics, index marks, etc, but this is just a test. If doing that for story 1 doesn't delete the index then try with story 2 and so on. Once you know which story the stray index character is in divide it in half and keep doing that until you find the paragraph it's in. Then you can go back to the original version and replace just that paragraph.

I believe even after this is fixed there's still the problem of the index content showing up in your TOC which is likely a style issue, but you need to fix this index issue first.

[sfriedberg]

I think this discussion highlights the need to have an easier way to locate all "special" contents.  Indexes specifically in this case, but fields more generally, and references (both targets and referring object) when we eventually get them.

[Dennison]

Found a hidden Text Frame - only know it's there if happened to be highlighted.

Text Frame contains Index - Text Style = Index Section Head.

what is weird is that when search made for Index Section Head - result = <No results found>

see screenshot.

 

no idea how Index got put in this Text Frame - it was a very text frame for a single word. (Could be that I selected Index with cursor still active in the text frame. Not likely, but possible.  It was all happening at the same time the book's main TOC was being replaced by the index!)

APub will still not allow an Index - so there must be another text frame linked to the deleted index.

I guess one solution is to 1) check every text frame on every book - 288 pages + 188 pages  and  2) scan every page for hidden text frames, as Find is not finding any Index text styles.

 

[Dennison]

On 2/2/2022 at 8:00 PM, MikeTO said:

Hmm, the Index Update bug appears to be fixed but I don't recall seeing that in the release notes. Therefore either trick should, um, do the trick.

Although you can insert an index into a text frame shared with any other text, just like in Microsoft Word and other apps, Publisher doesn't highlight the index when you choose Text > Highlight Fields like MS Word does so it's difficult to know where an index starts and ends. To avoid these sorts of issues I place my index and tables of contents into separate text frames. If I want to place a title before them I type that into a separate text frame.

I do the same - separate text frames for TOCs and for the Index and separate text frames for headings

[MikeTO]

6 hours ago, Dennison said:

no idea how Index got put in this Text Frame - it was a very text frame for a single word. (Could be that I selected Index with cursor still active in the text frame. Not likely, but possible.  It was all happening at the same time the book's main TOC was being replaced by the index!)

APub will still not allow an Index - so there must be another text frame linked to the deleted index.

I guess one solution is to 1) check every text frame on every book - 288 pages + 188 pages  and  2) scan every page for hidden text frames, as Find is not finding any Index text styles.

Turn on View > Show Text Flow which should show an outline around these frames. Turn off View > View Mode > Clip to Canvas so you can see the content in these frames. Now zoom out and scroll through your document and you should be able to find any more stray text frames like this. You should be able to scroll through 500 pages in 5-10 minutes.

[Dennison]

Great thank you!

Your help much appreciated.

[Dennison]

Basically the same issue persists - and it happens every time. I believe this is a BUG - as I reported in April!

I appreciate Indexing is probably a low priority but it is part of the stable version.

IF my keystrokes are creating the issue every time, I'd appreciate knowing why an Index ALREADY created at the back of the book becomes inserted into the TOC at the front of the book if ANY change is made to the Index.  This does not make sense.

NOT master page

NEW Text Frames for the TOC with NO Index formatting - quadrupled checked because this happens over and over with every new Text Frame.

TOC ONLY has TOC formatting - see screenshot. 

 

[MikeTO]

There's got to be something wrong with the document that we're not seeing. Is there any chance you could send it to me to look at? Just the doc, not the images.

When is the index being inserted into the TOC? I suggest taking a backup copy of your document and trying to retrace your steps:

1. Open the backup - check the TOC, ensure there's no index there.
2. Add an index mark somewhere in the document.
3. Go to the TOC
4. Open Preflight - click Fix to update the index and watch if this is when the index is inserted into the TOC. Take note of which character it is inserted after.
5. Assuming it is, immediately click Undo. Now position the text cursor after the character where the index was inserted. Check the text styles applied to that position in the text.