TOC grayed out... help pls!

[bbrother]

You should be able to create your table of contents exactly the way you want in terms of layout and style in Affinity Publisher without having to edit the pdf after exporting the book.

Remeber those things:

• Genereting table of contents works in such way that Affinity Publisher searches the document for text that has a specified text style applied and reproduces that text in a list. An single item in that list is called an entry.
• Table of contents entries are sorted in the order your headings are used in document from first to last page but what's more important entries from headings from text frames lower in the layers stack on page will appear earlier in the table of contents. 
• You cannot sort table of contents alphabeticaly.
• Text styles for table of contents entry styling are automaticaly generated by Affinity Publisher and show up in Text styles panel only when you position the text cursor in the table of contents. You can modify the attributes of these styles to make the table of contents look like you want.
• Do not edit or change the table of contents text manually. Use text styles. If you want to change the text of a table of contents entry, you should change the text of the heading from which it is created, not the entry itself. To exclude some heading remove text style from it but leave the formatting.

Knowing the above:

1. In all chapters apply the correct text styles to headings wchich you want to be picked up to table of contents.
2. Create a book and order the chapters.
3. Open the chapter in the book where you want to place the table of contents. Make sure you have enough place fot table of contents. If no add more pages so you would be able to flow the overflowing text to frame in a new page.
4. Open the Table of Contents panel.
5. Place text cursor in text frame where you want to generate the table of contents.
6. In Table of Contents panel click [Insert]. Then in the Style name list check paragraph styles to include in table of contents. Change the [Scope] to "Book". Finaly update table of contents.
7. Use TOC styles to format the table of contents to your liking.
8. Export the book
9. Grab yourself a cold beer because you've just done a lot of hard work.🍺

Hopefully i didnt miss something. I don't know how to help you more to make it work for you.

 

[LizziTAuthor]

Hello @bbrother and anyone else please!

Did all this and more. (without the beer...)

Tried unsuccessfully several times to export, it exported, but not all chapters (files).

Uninstalled and reinstalled AFPUB, seemed to help but not for long.

Made a pdf/x-3... and it put locks back in.
 

Found someone who could I could send my afpub  book file to. She open my file on ther PC (I am on a Mac), looked fine, saved as PDF print ready, where it wasn't yet perfect as her computer substituted grunge for anything which hadn't been given a style somehow, or was prev content normal but bold, and shorter lines were a bit messed up. She was able to open the resultant PDF in AF Designer and I've been working on it. BUT it was the full document.

While she was doing this I did a few more and noted which chapters hadn't exported:

1st Export: files/chapters missing:

 Dedication,  ch 1, ch 2, ch 5, ch 6, ch 8-20 !!, 21-24, 26, 34, Appendices, B2 (about the author), B4 (image and graphics credits).

 

Next export at 1321

Export is missing:

I4 TOC, dedication, first page of acknowledgements, chap 1, 2, and first page of ch 3,

Ch 4 through part of chap 6,  chap's 8-20, title pages for PART 2

All pages between QA disclaimer  (the QA chapters) and chap QA 28, ch 34, 35

Appendices  (the appendices title page)

B1 (recipe), B2, first pages of B3 (bibliography), B4 (images and graphics credit), B5 Thank you,

 

This morning tried again..

missing i4 TOC, dedication, Chapter 1,2, 4,5, 8-20, (present were part 2 header pages and Disclaimer), 21-24, 26, 34, Appendices header page, about the author, B4 images and graphics.

 

And little locks are appearing on all of these when they are missed.

Is it a Mac issue?

I just tried it using exactly the same print settings as she used and...

back to trouble again (as just above).

Is there a way to get this sorted? How do we get help from the company or find out if it's me or the selection of computer, etc?

My friend and I use same export settings.

I would just go with this, but in many chapters I used leading to keep headings from being orphaned at bottom of page, etc. and in the file in Designer where I can fix them, they appear to have lost the leading.

Please, I REALLY appreciate your help, but is there someone at the Serif who is keeping track of challenges with the new release or with MAC/ PC challenges? I didn't try exporting with prev release, so not sure if it's a new update issue or a Mac issue or it's MEEEE!  Book release is on 15th. Been at this for over a week now.

I have a PC that I can use, but I think my account is only for my mac? Is there a way to get a copy for my PC to see i this would work?

Thanks.

 

 

[Old Bruce]

Hi, @LizziTAuthor,

You aren't going to want to hear this bit of advice but here goes.

Do you really need to use the Books feature? 

I would be tempted to make the book as one Publisher file, a single document. Perhaps if there are hundreds of high resolution full colour photos I would split it into a couple or three documents to keep the memory requirements down. With your fifty (+/-) documents you are compounding the opportunities for mistakes to occur.

[LizziTAuthor]

Hi @Old Bruce! good morning!

Happy to hear any bit of advice, thanks!

I thought that might be the case, about mistakes.

I tried to combine one of the Parts pages and chaper 1, only a four paged chapter... it made a mess of the first chapter.

I'm new to AFPub and didn't know any other way (lol, I didn't know that way much either, but learning).

Yes, there are 2-4 images per page. 240 pages.

My friend had zero problems with the file on a PC.

Not sure how to get page numbering right if I do this?

THanks,
Lizzi

 

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, LizziTAuthor said:

Not sure how to get page numbering right if I do this?

If you have one Document then use a new section for the second part where you want the pages to go from xviii to 1. Start the new section on page nineteen and change the starting page number to one.

[LizziTAuthor]

I got it done... sent the MS to a friend in Aus who is familiar with the programs.

She put all of the files (1 for ea chapter) into AfDesigner, made a designer file, and sent it to me. Also made a PDF, but as her computer didn't have the same fonts, it needed work. So, I took one of my AFpub files which was the most complete (and best, it had all the correct styles) and I spent two days repairing all the bits that weren't in the styles they needed, headers, page numbers, reformatting the TOC, etc.

It's beautiful. but I don't think I want to use the Book function again until something is fixed.

How do I put in a request for getting something done about what sure looks like a glitch in the program? Perhaps a Mac thing?

It's handling the full file just fine and no problems with the PDFs.

Thanks all for your suggestions!

xx

Lizzi