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• • June 24, 2015 at 6:48 am #76216
    Amit Schandillia

    Member

    I have a table of contents that looks like this:

    (https://i.stack.imgur.com/gkdTL.png)

    As can be seen, all entries are displaying perfectly as intended except for the last one. In fact, this is just a small test version of the whole book…there are 68 chapters in all. And every single entry starting chapter 10 onwards is showing this weird behavior. The page number is set to align far right with the dots as tab leader in between. However, in these problem entries, there’s a duplication of the page number value right next to the chapter title. Every single chapter is based off a single template to ensure there’s no mismatch of styles, etc. Furthermore, the Book has been synchronized several times over to iron out any discrepancy. Here’s what my TOC dialog looks like:

    (https://i.stack.imgur.com/XQHW1.png)

    The paragraph style Chapter Num + Name corresponds to the chapter number entries in the TOC. Any suggestions to fix this annoying glitch?

  • June 24, 2015 at 7:06 am #76217
    Amit Schandillia

    Member

    P.S. I just selected the No Page Number option in the TOC dialog to be sure and ter the page number persists next to the last two entries in my TOC! Check this out:

    (https://i.stack.imgur.com/BhFp3.png)

  • June 25, 2015 at 7:50 pm #76257
    Kelly Vaughn

    Participant

    My suspicion is that there is a page number variable character after the chapter num + Name paragraph style in chapters 10 and beyond. Can you open chapter ten and take a screen shot of that paragraph? So I can see what the TOC is pulling in?

    • June 26, 2015 at 12:52 am #76269
      Amit Schandillia

      Member

      Also, for what it’s worth, I have noticed this problem begins to occur only at the 10th entry of this style (chapter num + name). If I remove some chapters to make it, say, the 9th or 6th, the problem goes away for that entry since it’s no longer the 10th. Not sure if I’m able to explain it well.

  • June 25, 2015 at 11:45 pm #76268
    Amit Schandillia

    Member

    Wow, finally someone noticed! Thanks a ton, Kelly. The style chapter num + name is the same across all documents (i.e. chapters) in the book and that’s what baffles me. The item exists on a separate layer (that’s invisible) in the title page of each chapter. Here’s a screen grab: (https://i.imgur.com/jL6Damb.png?1).

    The item actually consists of two variables that automatically populate the chapter number and chapter title components (https://i.imgur.com/Kd2PwEh.png).

  • June 26, 2015 at 4:49 am #76271
    Kelly Vaughn

    Participant

    Would you be willing to send me your InDesign files so I can troubleshoot?
    Kelly at document geek dot com

  • June 26, 2015 at 11:26 am #76277
    Amit Schandillia

    Member

    Thanks Kelly…just sent a mail to you.

  • June 26, 2015 at 1:05 pm #76281
    Kelly Vaughn

    Participant

    Wow, you are right! It appears that you have found a bug! I was able to replicate it and I figured out the problem. InDesign TOCs, for whatever crazy reason, have a problem pulling in paragraphs containing with text variables. In This case, the paragraph style you reference in your TOC has two different text variables in it: this chapter number, and the Title.

    I tried changing the text variable type to a character style running header or a filename,e but the problem persisted. I was able to get those extra page numbers to go away by converting one of those variable to live text, so there is only one variable in that paragraph. The easiest way would be to convert the chapter numbers on that line to live text. That way, you Chapter name variable will still stay live.

    Again, as to why this happens only on chapter 10 and up, I have no idea. It’s a very weird bug, indeed. It apparently has something to do with the multiple text variables. I tried having three variables in a paragraph referenced by a TOC, and InDesign started omitting/changing some of the text from the TOC, and pulling in the chapter number of the TOC as a live variable. I changed the chapter numbering style of the TOC so you can see that the TOC is referring the TOC chapter number, and not the actual text from the document. Crazy stuff, I tell ya!

    https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zvvwIty0he0/VY2sP_daAFI/AAAAAAAACOQ/oAVXmufmRIw/s1600/CRAZYTOC.png

    Just for kicks, I made that line have 8 different variables, then duplicated the text variable and converted all the variable in that second frame to live text. Then I updated the TOC again. And insanity ensued! Not only did InDesign mess up most of the variables, it also added that extra page number six times! I colored the different text variable so you can see a bit better how crazy this is.

    Wha-What?

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CiIt1x975Ds/VY2vzicYG6I/AAAAAAAACOc/0HY6EkYujJw/s1600/CraziestTOCEver.png

    I would submit this to the InDesign team as a bug: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

    So again, the easy fix: make your chapter numbers live text in the “Chap Num + Name” paragraph. That should fix it.

    *Shakes head in disbelief…

  • June 27, 2015 at 7:10 am #76287
    Amit Schandillia

    Member

    That’s a brilliant find, Kelly! And I’m thoroughly miffed at how something this big escaped the attention of all those publishers who use Indesign all the time and the folks at Adobe themselves. Super stranger indeed. I hope they put a fix in place with some future release. In the meantime, as you advised, I have changed every single instance of chapter number on the second layer into hard text instead of a variable. A frustratingly manual workaround if you ask me given there are over 60 such documents!

    “So again, the easy fix: make your chapter numbers live text in the “Chap Num + Name” paragraph.”…just so I understand you well, “live text” here means hard-coded text as opposed to variable, right? Or is it something else that I’m not aware of? Still learning things with ID so apologies for the naïve question.

  • June 27, 2015 at 7:18 am #76288
    Kelly Vaughn

    Participant

    Injury it is a known issue, though most people don’t encounter it. This is the first time I’ve seen it in 14 years of using InDesign.

    You can go select the frame and convert everything in it to live text: “convert variable to text.” Yes, hard coded text instead of a variable. If you encounter other TOC issues, try converting ALL the variables in that paragraph to live text. From what I gather talking with a colleague, text variables in TOC source paragraphs can’t be trusted. :(

  • June 27, 2015 at 7:21 am #76289
    Amit Schandillia

    Member

    Yes, converting everything to live text worked like a charm. What an assbackward way of doing something Adobe could and should have easily automated! But all seems good for now though. :)

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