Creating Table of Contents in Publisher is Impossible

[Ryan Clarke]

I've got to say that the table of contents function in Publisher is so bad it is totally unfit for use. I'm using an M1 Macbook Pro and if I make the slightest change to the table of contents it slows my system down to a crawl. I also tried changing TOC Style to TOC 1 and it crashed my system, or at least locked it up for 5 minutes so I had to force quit it. Also, when I scroll down the document everything functions well. The moment I scroll up to the table of contents, I see a massive slowdown in the functionality of Publisher.

Even when I can get the contents to work, it leaves random gaps in between the selected styles, as if it has added phantom entries that don't exist. I have checked those areas and I cannot find what it is supposed to be linking to. And as Publisher does not have any option to create clickable links for entries (none that I can find in any logical menu selection anyway), then I cannot just jump to the spot to see what it is pointing at.

Also, the TOCF style guide is incredible confusing and glitchy. I try an make a change in any of these an nothing will show up for about 30 seconds. Then all of a sudden it will make a change. Or revert back to an earlier style. Why on earth does it create 3 different TOC styles all named TOC 2, and yet the menu says that there is a TOC 1 - which just causes my system to crash.

How else can I create a table of contents if the Publisher version doesn't work?

[Ryan Clarke]

It appears that - for whatever reason - the TOC it is choosing to add some of the carriage returns that are in the heading style as entries and some it is not, despite them all being the same.

There is an option to remove line breaks from inside headings, but when the heading IS a line break, it does nothing! Some line breaks it sees as chapter headings, and others it ignores.

And how do you format a TOC? The style options won't even appear unless you click inside the TOC. Then of course, the moment you click the style you want to modify, it changes everything. Why do they vanish from the style editor the moment you click outside the table of contents??

I can't believe how impossible this thing is to work with. It's like trying to hit a running target. Still, at least it didn't crash this time, which is an improvement of sorts.

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, Ryan Clarke said:

There is an option to remove line breaks from inside headings, but when the heading IS a line break, it does nothing!

Line Breaks are not Paragraph Breaks.

Which do you have? Text > Show Special Characters will help you differentiate them.

[MikeTO]

Formatting a paragraph break (carriage return) with a heading style used in the TOC wil not create a TOC entry because empty paragraphs are ignored. Could you turn on show special characters as advised by Walt and shared a screenshot of the TOC showing the empty entries? Showing special characters will reveal exactly what is being generated.

To modify a TOC text style, don't click on the style in the Text Styles panel because that will apply the style. Click the options menu icon to its right to edit the style. Or, simply change paragraph and character attributes with the panels and Context Toolbar and then click the options menu icon and update the style without opening the Text Style Editor.

Like you, I have an M1 MacBook Pro but I have no performance issues with the TOCs in any of my books. If it's locking up for 5 minutes I suggest restarting your computer because it sounds like a macOS memory fragmentation issue. What are your performance settings, could you share a screenshot?

Do yo have one or more TOCs in your document? The screenshot shows you are editing TOC 1 formatted as style TOC 2 which seems a bit odd. If you click the TOC list, is there a TOC 2?

Publisher hides the TOC text styles when you're not editing a TOC because it would clutter up the list for those who don't use the hierarchical view. A book with chapter-level TOCs and two levels of heading per TOC would have 24 text styles.