Word vs. outlines
February 14, 2019 4:14 PM Subscribe
I'm having some difficulty generating a table of contents in Word 2016 for the PC...
This is a legal brief, which means the sections follow an outline-style format. I have the headers for each section tagged with an appropriate heading style. However, when I generate the TOC, I get this sort of result (please assume that the page numbers are all lined up neatly, it's too tedious for me to fiddle with):
Preliminary Statement.......1 [this is desired result for Heading 1 style]
Statement of Facts..............2 [ditto]
Argument............................3 [ditto]
I. Subargument 1.............4 [this is desired result for Heading 2 style]
II. Subargument 3.............6 [ditto]
Subsubargument 1.....7 [not ok for Heading 3! should have A in front of it]
A.....................................7 [not ok! this is the missing A from the prior line]
B. Subsubargument 2.......8 [but this one DOES look right for Heading 3]
1. S3argument.............9 [and this is desired result for Heading 4]
2. S3argument..............10
The "Subsubargument 1" recurs throughout the TOC, but not consistently. That is, sometimes a subsubargument (heading 3) appears on a line by itself, and then is followed by the leader it should have on its line. But sometimes it's fine, as with Subsubargument 2. At least once, the first subsubargument in a block is fine; sometimes the subsequent subsubarguments are fine, sometimes they're not.
I've checked the subsubargument headers, and they are all (a) the appropriate Heading style and (b) flagged in the References:Table of Contents pane under "Add Text" as the appropriate level of header. I cannot find any stray space that has been marked as being a header when it should be a "do not include." (And anyway that wouldn't explain why Subsubargument isn't getting its leader.) There is text in between Subargument 3 and Subsubargument 1; I tried deleting it, with no result.
I can't remember ever coming across this problem before. WTF??? And thanks.
This is a legal brief, which means the sections follow an outline-style format. I have the headers for each section tagged with an appropriate heading style. However, when I generate the TOC, I get this sort of result (please assume that the page numbers are all lined up neatly, it's too tedious for me to fiddle with):
Preliminary Statement.......1 [this is desired result for Heading 1 style]
Statement of Facts..............2 [ditto]
Argument............................3 [ditto]
I. Subargument 1.............4 [this is desired result for Heading 2 style]
II. Subargument 3.............6 [ditto]
Subsubargument 1.....7 [not ok for Heading 3! should have A in front of it]
A.....................................7 [not ok! this is the missing A from the prior line]
B. Subsubargument 2.......8 [but this one DOES look right for Heading 3]
1. S3argument.............9 [and this is desired result for Heading 4]
2. S3argument..............10
The "Subsubargument 1" recurs throughout the TOC, but not consistently. That is, sometimes a subsubargument (heading 3) appears on a line by itself, and then is followed by the leader it should have on its line. But sometimes it's fine, as with Subsubargument 2. At least once, the first subsubargument in a block is fine; sometimes the subsequent subsubarguments are fine, sometimes they're not.
I've checked the subsubargument headers, and they are all (a) the appropriate Heading style and (b) flagged in the References:Table of Contents pane under "Add Text" as the appropriate level of header. I cannot find any stray space that has been marked as being a header when it should be a "do not include." (And anyway that wouldn't explain why Subsubargument isn't getting its leader.) There is text in between Subargument 3 and Subsubargument 1; I tried deleting it, with no result.
I can't remember ever coming across this problem before. WTF??? And thanks.
Just throwing out possible things to check, but is there anything wonky going on on page 7 if you toggle formatting marks? If not, what about copying formatting from a similar header section that is working correctly?
posted by lesser weasel at 4:35 PM on February 14, 2019
posted by lesser weasel at 4:35 PM on February 14, 2019
You may check the formatting in the subsubheader, and for each that exists. There sometimes can end up being multiple headers that have different formatting, for the same 'level'. Make sure that "Update formatting for all instances" is also selected (I forget the exact wording or location of this.. but that fixes a lot of problems).
Also, it could be the paragraph formatting that has an automatic leading carriage return, or something totally unrelated like that. I also like to put on the option to see all formatting by code, which helps uncover issues.
posted by rich at 7:02 AM on February 15, 2019
Also, it could be the paragraph formatting that has an automatic leading carriage return, or something totally unrelated like that. I also like to put on the option to see all formatting by code, which helps uncover issues.
posted by rich at 7:02 AM on February 15, 2019
Response by poster: Holy mackerel, accepting changes worked! I probably should've thought to try that myself. Thanks, everyone!
posted by praemunire at 7:45 AM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 7:45 AM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yay!
Just as a note, you might want to bookmark Deborah Savadra's site if you don't have it:
ToA's
ToC's
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:50 PM on February 18, 2019
Just as a note, you might want to bookmark Deborah Savadra's site if you don't have it:
ToA's
ToC's
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:50 PM on February 18, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by tavegyl at 4:31 PM on February 14, 2019