ToC has section titles and unregistered titles (Publisher 2)

[berkemir]

Hey all, I'm working on my book and was trying to generate ToC and Index. While index works, generating pdf bookmarks from the ToC went sideways. You can see the inconsistency in the screenshot below.

I'm using Affinity Publisher 2 v2.5.5 on Windows 11.

I've checked the document for more ToC's that might've added other titles, but I couldn't find any. Also, I have no idea how to prevent document names from appearing in the ToC. Is this a bug?

Edited September 4 by berkemir
wrong term used

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

41 minutes ago, berkemir said:

You can see the inconsistency in the screenshot below.

I'm sure you can see it, and we probably can see it, too. But you know better than we do what you think should be there and what shouldn't. It would be helpful if you highlighted the discrepancies, or named a few specific ones to direct our attention.

Also, we have no way of knowing what information is coming from sections.

[berkemir]

Hey @walt.farrell sorry about that. I was referring to the discrepancy in bookmarks on the left, and the ToC on the right. 
Basically, I aim to have what is on the right, under contents, on the bookmarks.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks. So it is things missing from the PDF bookmarks, not extra things added?

Your question about "sections appearing in the ToC" still confuses me? What is there that shouldn't be?

[berkemir]

Honestly I don’t want the names of documents. That’s what I mistakenly referred to as section. For example D&H Chapter 1 is a document name that doesn’t exist on the right side. Some documents have their name included, some don’t.

[berkemir]

Hey @walt.farrell it is both missing from PDF bookmarks and extra things added, that's why it is confusing. Some of the things in original ToC are in bookmarks, some are not. Also, some other paragraph styles are included in bookmarks, even when they are not part of ToC. For example chapter 8 is exactly what it should be, even though there should also be an appendix in bookmarks. However, chapter 7 simply doesn't make sense.

 

[berkemir]

Hello I believe I've found the issue. The anchors seem to be auto generated. However, I still don't see the document names so I don't know how to remove them.

[berkemir]

After many attempts, and deleting all anchors, I still have two issues.

1. Some Documents that are in ToC I've generated don't show in bookmarks, as you can see (Chapter II, Chapter IV, Chapter VI, and Appendix)

2. The bookmarks are not organized by their page number, but their alphabetical order instead.

I don't understand how 5 minutes of bookmarks in InDesign has cost me over hours and still is unresolved, it is a bit frustrating.

[berkemir]

Just to inform if anyone had the same problem.

First of all, the problem was based on "Book" function of the affinity. 

After merging all documents in a single document, and entering appropriate indents for ToC, bookmarks were generated correctly.

However, I believe this is a huge shortcoming for Affinity Publisher 2. At least optimization for a 300 page long document is well-done and it can be managed, so that's a plus.

Hope it helps others!

[MikeTO]

Hi @berkemir, this is a known issue with using the Books and TOC features together. I reported it just a few weeks ago so it hasn't been fixed yet.

The workaround you've used, merging all of your chapter files together into a single document, is the best solution. Regardless of the bug, I don't recommend dividing a document into chapter files unless your system can't handle it as a single document.