Table of Contents font changes to bold or italic

[Brian_J]

I experience an issue periodically in Affinity Publisher — when I update the TOC, the font of all the text in the TOC changes to bold or italic. I haven't made any changes to the font or text styles prior to the issue occurring. If I select all the text in the TOC and Reapply Base Styles, the bold/italic is removed, but when I update the TOC again the bold/italic is reapplied.

I've attached an example Affinity Publisher file where this issue has occurred ... the TOC is italic, which I don't want. Any ideas what's causing this?

Example.afpub

[walt.farrell]

I see the same thing with your document, but I have no idea why that's happening. Definitely strange.

Did you create the document in Publisher, or is the text in it imported from someplace else, such as a .docx, .rtf, or .idml file?

[Brian_J]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Did you create the document in Publisher, or is the text in it imported from someplace else, such as a .docx, .rtf, or .idml file?

@walt.farrell I created the document in Publisher. None of the text was copied or imported from a different file.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Brian_J said:

all the text in the TOC changes to bold or italic.

Also to me on mac there is no change if I update the TOC. But I am not sure if the state of the document when it opens is what you expect, because it shows already "all the text in the TOC" in "bold or italic". So it's unclear don't you expect any text bold for instance? Then you would need to reset the saved TOC style accordingly and remove its current Font weight "Bold" to "[No Change]".

[Brian_J]

I was able to fix the issue (still no idea why it happens). I didn't have the 'Font traits' set in the Base text style. When I change it to Regular and update the TOC, the font goes back to normal.

I normally change the Base text style 'Font trait' to the specific trait I want, but sometimes I don't. I have another Affinity Publisher file where 'Font traits' is not set in the Base style (i.e., [No change]) and the TOC font displays just fine.

Thanks for the input everyone. I don't understand why the issue occurs, but I guess I know where to look if it happens again.

[MikeTO]

FYI this is a bug and the workaround is to define the font weight in TOC 1: Entry (or in the individual TOC text styles) so that the bold or italic you applied to some other text isn't inherited by the update TOC function. For example, I had this issue with my document. TOC 1: Entry was defined as Myriad Pro, just the font family, no weight. The problem won't occur if I change it to Myriad Pro Regular.

 

[Twila]

On 11/11/2023 at 12:02 PM, MikeTO said:

FYI this is a bug and the workaround is to define the font weight in TOC 1: Entry (or in the individual TOC text styles) so that the bold or italic you applied to some other text isn't inherited by the update TOC function. For example, I had this issue with my document. TOC 1: Entry was defined as Myriad Pro, just the font family, no weight. The problem won't occur if I change it to Myriad Pro Regular.

On 11/11/2023 at 12:02 PM, MikeTO said:

FYI this is a bug and the workaround is to define the font weight in TOC 1: Entry (or in the individual TOC text styles) so that the bold or italic you applied to some other text isn't inherited by the update TOC function. For example, I had this issue with my document. TOC 1: Entry was defined as Myriad Pro, just the font family, no weight. The problem won't occur if I change it to Myriad Pro Regular.

 

 

 

[Twila]

On 11/11/2023 at 12:02 PM, MikeTO said:

FYI this is a bug and the workaround is to define the font weight in TOC 1: Entry (or in the individual TOC text styles) so that the bold or italic you applied to some other text isn't inherited by the update TOC function. For example, I had this issue with my document. TOC 1: Entry was defined as Myriad Pro, just the font family, no weight. The problem won't occur if I change it to Myriad Pro Regular.

 

 

On 11/11/2023 at 12:02 PM, MikeTO said:

FYI this is a bug and the workaround is to define the font weight in TOC 1: Entry (or in the individual TOC text styles) so that the bold or italic you applied to some other text isn't inherited by the update TOC function. For example, I had this issue with my document. TOC 1: Entry was defined as Myriad Pro, just the font family, no weight. The problem won't occur if I change it to Myriad Pro Regular.

 

 

1 minute ago, Twila said:

I'm having a similar problem with a TOC update changing the font. What is the answer to the fix?

2 minutes ago, Twila said:

 

 

[Twila]

I have Windows 11. When I make a TOC update, the font changes from Segoe Script to Arial. What is the workaround? I wasn't following the previous instructions.

 

[Brian_J]

1 hour ago, Twila said:

I have Windows 11. When I make a TOC update, the font changes from Segoe Script to Arial. What is the workaround? I wasn't following the previous instructions.

 

Do your TOC text styles have the font set to Segeo Script?

[Twila]

I will check that out. Thanks!

 

[Twila]

Back to the next step:

How do I edit my text styles for TOC 2 to be the same as the text styles for TOC 1 or actually it's headings and subheadings? 

[Twila]

Actually I have two separate documents, one is a student book and one is a teacher's manual with pages from the student book in a shrunken form. When I do the TOC in the teacher manual the headings and subheadings all change to a different text style. What must I do to keep the formatting of the TOC in BBOS tm the same as in BBOS. Compare the pages in BBOS tm 6,7 with BBOS 6,7 below. 

Adobe Scan BBOS 6,7.pdf Adobe Scan BBOS tm 6,7.pdf Adobe Scan BBOS TOC.pdf Adobe Scan BBOS tm TOC.pdf

[MikeTO]

8 hours ago, Twila said:

How do I edit my text styles for TOC 2 to be the same as the text styles for TOC 1 or actually it's headings and subheadings? 

You can edit the TOC text styles when the text cursor is positioned in the TOC. Using the Text Styles panel, you can make the TOC Heading 2 formatting match Heading 1 if that's what you want. Or if you're using multiple TOCs, you can delete TOC 2 Style and then it will use TOC 1 Style. I've described how to do this in the new version of my free unofficial Publisher manual, which you can download from this forum. The link is in my signature below.

Cheers

[Twila]

Thanks a lot!  That worked except now my page numbers don't stay at the right side of the page and only a part of them are given, the ones missing are for the subheadings. So now how do I edit that? (Sorry I'm so ignorant! Still learning.)

 

And thanks for allowing me to get the pdf of your manual.

[MikeTO]

31 minutes ago, Twila said:

Thanks a lot!  That worked except now my page numbers don't stay at the right side of the page and only a part of them are given, the ones missing are for the subheadings. So now how do I edit that? (Sorry I'm so ignorant! Still learning.)

And thanks for allowing me to get the pdf of your manual.

You're welcome. There are instructions in the manual to format TOC page numbers to be right aligned, with and without a dot leader. The trick is to edit the respective TOC text style, perhaps TOC 1: Heading 2, and set it to be right aligned and 0 from right.

Good luck.

[Twila]

Ok, I have the numbering and fonts straightened out but now for some reason, my pages come out in the TOC in the wrong order. To try to fix this, I have totally deleted the TOC, fixed the font settings and all that, then reinserted the TOC and even though I have the cursor set on the first page (which in this case is page iv), it places the first page on page vi, and has pages three and four on page iv. What am I doing wrong or how to fix this?

[MikeTO]

25 minutes ago, Twila said:

Ok, I have the numbering and fonts straightened out but now for some reason, my pages come out in the TOC in the wrong order. To try to fix this, I have totally deleted the TOC, fixed the font settings and all that, then reinserted the TOC and even though I have the cursor set on the first page (which in this case is page iv), it places the first page on page vi, and has pages three and four on page iv. What am I doing wrong or how to fix this?

Hi, I'm not entirely sure I understand the issue. Could you share a screenshot to illustrate the problem?

If you're trying to insert the TOC into a specific page and the TOC is appearing on a page before it: Is the frame you're trying to insert it into linked from a previous frame? If you're clicking in a frame with no text and it's linked from a previous frame, the cursor position will actually be in the previous frame so that's where the TOC will be inserted.

Perhaps you didn't fully delete the TOC and you're clicking the Update icon rather than the one to add a new TOC. In that case, the TOC you didn't fully delete will be updated.

Without seeing the document or screenshots it's hard to tell which scenario this might be.

Good luck.

[Twila]

I will attach some pdf files with pics of the pages. I hope that you will be able to see the sequence of the way the TOC is mis-arranged.There may be some duplicity with the pics as I wasn't sure how they would open up for you. I hope this will be helpful.

And thanks again for your help. TwilaAdobe Scan Dec 08, 2023 (2).pdf

Adobe Scan Dec 08, 2023.pdf Adobe Scan Dec 08, 2023 (3).pdf Adobe Scan Dec 08, 2023 (4).pdf Adobe Scan Dec 08, 2023 (5).pdf

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Twila said:

I will attach some pdf files with pics of the pages. I hope that you will be able to see the sequence of the way the TOC is mis-arranged.There may be some duplicity with the pics as I wasn't sure how they would open up for you. I hope this will be helpful.

My best guess based on these screen captures is that you've linked the frames in the wrong order. Select View > Show Text Flow if it's not already selected and then you'll see the links between text frames. Ensure the frames for the TOC pages are linked in the right order and not backward.

Tip: Instead of taking photos of your screen with your phone's camera, take screenshots using Windows - the resulting images will be a lot easier to look at. Here are instructions from Microsoft: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screenshots-00246869-1843-655f-f220-97299b865f6b

Good luck

[Twila]

On 12/8/2023 at 5:42 PM, MikeTO said:

My best guess based on these screen captures is that you've linked the frames in the wrong order. Select View > Show Text Flow if it's not already selected and then you'll see the links between text frames. Ensure the frames for the TOC pages are linked in the right order and not backward.

Tip: Instead of taking photos of your screen with your phone's camera, take screenshots using Windows - the resulting images will be a lot easier to look at. Here are instructions from Microsoft: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screenshots-00246869-1843-655f-f220-97299b865f6b

Good luck

Happy New Year! Hi, I'm back after a lengthy Christmas break. Thank you for the above tips which were very helpful.