TOC & styles logic

[Gianni Becattini]

I recently had a harsh discussion with Publisher for creating a TOC of a book. Apart from this part being still very unstable with continous crashes, I could not decode the logic of the way the stiles are created/updated by the TOC update process.

I tried every way to create the styles as I would with no success (sometimes it worked, others the not) and I was even going to give-up and write it by hand when I discovered the small button "Update styles" shown in the attachment. Clicking on it, after the update, the styles return as I decided they had to be.

But which is the logic beneath? And why must I press a button to do what normally happens?

If there is a document explaining it, don't loose your time answering, I can try to read it.

By the way, for your information, often searching the Internet I can find a topic from the help but it jumps just to a first page of an old 1.1 help, not to the specific topic.

Thanks for any help

[walt.farrell]

I don't know if this description will help, in part because I'm not sure how much you already know.

1. The TOC-related Text Styles are created automatically, based (in part) on the Text Styles you've selected in the TOC panel.
2. Once they are created, you can update them.

I usually do that by placing the cursor on a line in the TOC that i want to change, then opening the Text Styles panel, right-clicking on the TOC Text Style that is highlighted in the list, and choosing Edit <style name> from the list. But you could also click the 3-line icon on the right of the name and choose Edit <style name> from there. When done with that editing, I click OK in the Edit Text Style dialog.

That icon you pointed to is "Reapply Text Styles". It is used to revert (undo) any changes you may have made manually to the text's styling (via the Character or Paragraph panels or the Context Toolbar).

I have no idea why you'd need to use it, nor why it would do what you seem to be saying it does. But if you would provide more information about the steps you're taking to edit the Text Styles, I could try to explain further.

[Gianni Becattini]

Thank you for replying, Walt.

I believe I am doing correctly what you explained me. I try to mentally rebuild some of the incongruences I met. Example:

1. I create a TO and try to edit the resulting TOC styles. I used the way you suggest (style editing) and also modifying the text style style on the screen and then "Update style"; it seems that the two methods should be equivalent (and seem to be);
2. when I have a number of rows which have the same style (and no character style in addition), I imagined that changing the style, all the text with that style should change accordingly, and this is the normal behavior outside the TOC;
3. inside the TOC, this does not happen. I change a style, and only the line where I am working changes. So, for example, the paragraph style "Subtitle" says font 15 and the text in the TOC does not change accordingly (I repeat: without any character style that could justify the override).
4. in addition, when you update the TOC, you have unpredictable effects on the already existing TOC styles.

With all that above, I was extremely confused (also for the almost continuous crashes). But then I discovered the magic "Reapply styles" button, which fixes the situation. 

Now, I update the TOC (and get the unpredictable results that I told before). Then I select all the lines of the TOC and press "Update styles" and the TOC returns to look as I would. In other words, it seems that inside the TOC, the defined styles don't work "automatically" but you need to force them with the magic button. This method has a limit: when I export the book, a new update is done automatically, and so you cannot press the button. But if I:

• update the TOC;
• apply the button;
• save the file

The problem disappears; probably if the new update is like the former, no change in styles happen (or I don't know why.... but it works).

I would like to see if there is something that I did not understand or it is just a bug for which I casually found a workaround.

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

inside the TOC, this does not happen. I change a style, and only the line where I am working changes. So, for example, the paragraph style "Subtitle" says font 15 and the text in the TOC does not change accordingly (I repeat: without any character style that could justify the override).

If you actually change the Text Style, everything using that Text Style should instantly change. And it does, for me.

This leads me to suspect that either you are not changing the Text Style, but something else, or the other lines do not have the Text Styles you think they have.

Can you provide more details of how you "change a style" when "only the line where I am working changes"?

[Gianni Becattini]

Yes, sure. I will try to rebuild a demo fragment to demonstrate it. It will took me a while, but I do.

[Gianni Becattini]

I posted three images: 1, 2 and 3.

• Screen 1: the starting situation. A TOC has been generated.
• Screen 2: the TOC has been updated. The level 1 has been wrongly indented, disagreeing with the TOC style.
• Screen 3: if I change the level 2 indent, it works as expected (note the difference with the other screenshots). But for level 1 it does not work properly. You can see the style (already saved, believe me please), with the left indent set to zero, but the TOC does not changed accordingly, and so, whatever I do.

To reset the situation, it is enough to select all the TOC and press the Update Styles button. 

However, with the button trick, all is OK. Maybe good to know for others.

[MikeTO]

Please turn on Text > Show Special Characters and check that there isn't an inserted tab before the TOC 1: Heading 1 paragraphs. It's hard to tell with just a handful of screenshots but perhaps you've turned on paragraph numbering or bullets by accident and it's inserting a tab but not a number or bullet.

Also, I a pretty thorough description of how the TOC text styles work in the manual I shared so review that for steps to follow.

Good luck.

[Gianni Becattini]

Thanks for the manual, I will study it. 

This is the screenshot. It seems that no special character is there.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Gianni Becattini said:

This is the screenshot. It seems that no special character is there.

It would also be helpful to see a screenshot that is not clipped like that, but includes the complete application window, and where you have the text cursor in one of the lines that doesn't behave correctly, so we can verify (for example) what the text style is for that line.

[Gianni Becattini]

I spent a couple of hours trying to understand something better. So I did:

• I deleted the TOC
• the file where the TOC is is very short; I cleaned it up as I could, leaving only few styles
• I created a new TOC. I was expecting that the default styles were related to the headers styles; I got something better, but that let me think that however something has not been cleared. E.g.: the heading styles were very big, while the TOC were about 12
• the "problem" is simple and repetitive. When I change the TOC styles, sometime they are applied immediately, other times I need the magic button
• apart from that, the situation is however manageable
• I will post this evening the pictures you asked me

[Gianni Becattini]

Hi Walt,

sorry for delay, honestly I forgot it. I post three pictures:

1) before TOC update

2) after TOC update

3) you can see that the style has been modified, but nevertheless the text did not change accordingly: the text is still indented even if the indent is set to zero. However, the "Update" key resets the things as they should.

[walt.farrell]

@Gianni Becattini: please provide a screenshot like #3 but where the text cursor is in the text that is not handled correctly.

[Gianni Becattini]

I hope I understand your request. In the picture n.3 the cursor is in the selected word (see this one, the red circled word).

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

In the picture n.3 the cursor is in the selected word (see this one, the red circled word

In the earlier post, you corrected the text style used for the word Calculator. But then you posted a picture showing (I thought) indentation errors in some different text, such as HP-35 Calculator in the next line. 

If that's the text that's now incorrect, we need to see a screenshot with the cursor in that line.

[Oufti]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:54 PM, Gianni Becattini said:

To reset the situation, it is enough to select all the TOC and press the Update Styles button. 

For myself, sometimes I have a TOC that behaves oddly (all text is suddenly in small caps…). — Generally it happens after I modified formatting in the text and updated style according to the modified text.

In these cases (after many other methods having been tried), I do some "magic" (I mean, I don't understand the rationale behind but it looks like it works) by 1) updating the TOC, 2) reapplying, like you, the text style to the whole TOC, and it is enough to have everything back as I want… 

I read this thread with interest but have not understood yet what is really going on. 

+++++++++++++

2 hours ago, Gianni Becattini said:

In the picture n.3 the cursor is in the selected word (see this one, the red circled word).

In today picture #3, the cursor is not in the text, as the Move tool is selected. Hence we cannot see what paragraph style is applied. 

(I only describe what I see…)

In picture #1, the cursor is in Calculators paragraph. The style definition is with a 0mm left indent, but it is not like that in the text, as indicated by the plus sign in the Style menu "TOC 1: Section title+".
I note also that the checkbox "Apply the style to the selection" at the bottom left is not ticked.

In picture #2, the cursor is still in Calculators paragraph. The plus sign is not there anymore (so the style definition is not different from the current formatting) but we see that the paragraph is set to 8 mm indent. 

Finally I understand (am I wrong?) that the 3rd picture shows the intended result, with Section titles set flush left (no indent) and the secondary titles (like HP-35) are indented. But we dont have the cursor in the text…

 

[Gianni Becattini]

I try again, forgive me if I did not understand....

The cursor is on the "Voltmeter" word, after "Vo".

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

The cursor is on the "Voltmeter" word, after "Vo".

Thanks. In that case, I'm not sure I understand what the problem is.

If you go back to your earlier post, you said that screenshot 3 demonstrated a problem because there was text, after the Update, that was not indented. That is what I am trying to help with. I want to see that situation, from that screenshot 3, with the text that was not indented there, and with the text cursor in the text.

[Gianni Becattini]

Sorry, I was not clear. The problem is more general: I have a TOC style, e.g., with no indents, and the TOC text.

The TOC text does not reflect the style settings. In this case, the style says "0 indent" and the TOC text is indented. You can change the style as you want, sometimes the TOC text is updated, other times it doesn't.

However, the magic button fixes the situation that, IMHO, should be automatic. However, when you know that, it is not a big problem, but to discover that button was not easy for me.

[MikeTO]

To avoid confusion, could you open the document before updating the TOC, when the TOC is the way you want it. Then select the TOC text and copy it to the clipboard. Create a blank new document and draw a text frame, and paste it in. This will paste the TOC styles with it. Save this as "before.afpub".

Then update the TOC in the original document, select the TOC text, and copy and paste it to another new document, save this as after.afpub. Then upload both of those documents here.

Thanks,

Mike

[Gianni Becattini]

Here are. I hope I understood correctly.

before update.afpub after update.afpub after update and button.afpub

[MikeTO]

Thanks, there is something odd with the definitions of the Section Title and Subsection Title styles but those aren't included with the document. Could you add one more page to the before update document with a text frame using those two styles?

For example, I updated the document with two placeholder styles for them and updating the TOC works perfectly. So this implies the issue lies with the definition of the Section and Subsection Title styles and we'd need to see those, too, to duplicate the issue.

before update.afpub

Before update vs. After update - the headings are all on page 2 in my test document

 

[walt.farrell]

56 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

there is something odd with the definitions of the Section Title and Subsection Title styles but those aren't included with the document.

I see them in the Text Styles panel, so I'm not sure what you mean by them not being included, Mike.

[MikeTO]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I see them in the Text Styles panel, so I'm not sure what you mean by them not being included, Mike.

The TOC 1: Section Title and TOC 1: Subsection Title styles are included, but Section Title and Subsection Title are not included. I believe the problem lies with these styles upon which the TOC styles are based.

[Mark Daniel]

It's hard to be 100% sure without the full original document but I think it's because you've deleted the 'Base' style that all the TOC styles are ultimately based on.

Without that style (which defines everything) they end up being based on 'No Style' which defines nothing.

That means when going from 'TOC 1: Subsection title' which defines 'Left indent: 8' and 'TOC 1: Section title' which doesn't define left indent at all (and inherits no definition) there is nothing to force the value back to 0.

Mark

[Gianni Becattini]

Here is the document as requested. I add also the chapter where the TOC is (I just removed two pages from it). I have no problems loading the whole book if you want.

Some additional notes:

• recently, I used the command "delete unused styles" but, for what I can remember, I always used to have problems with TOCs since long time ago (also with the previous versions)
• before pasting in the test page, I cleared the character styles from the two styles. You can see them uncleared in the chapter document.

Tell me if you need other tests, thanks.

HP E00 00 Introduction.afpub before update.afpub