I have created a multi-chapter book. All the page numbers are correct from chapter to chapter. The Index of Figures is correct and sequential.

Chapter 3 contains figures 1 and 2.
Chapter 4 assigns 'figure 4' to the first figure, skipping figure 3.

As I said, my Index of figures is correct and lists 'figure 3' with the caption that in the body of the text is assigned to figure 4.

I have tried changing the caption paragraph style bullets and numbering to 'start at' to 3, but then all of the figures in chapter 4 are labeled 'figure 3.'

Please help me, I am desperate.

Thank you in advance.

RE: Index / Table of Contents

When creating an Index, you are limited to populate ONLY one Index style format. MS Word, it is greatly inferior program, and yet you can create a General Index, a Index of Cases and Index of Figures. Indesign is the leading industry program for designers and writers, NOT MS word.

What happens if have lots of illustrations, data tables graphs and flowcharts all numbered accordingly. For example, an illustration (Figure 20 or Table 7), maybe on page 40, but there are 40 mentions throughout the document. Thus, in Indesign, you can not create a proper index list every page number of Figure 20, or a table etc. If you to want create more Indexes like the Index format, you CANNOT, you are forced to use the Table of Contents style.

We are in a climate where there is a strong demand for indexes that best help our customers to locate information in the books and magazines we produce.

We need to improve the Index function with the ability to create multiple Indexes, that follow the actual Index format (not the Table of Contents Format). If you use Peter Kahrel’s script or IndexMatic they are very limited what you can do. IndexMatic creates a concordance and Peter's Script uses the Topic area of the Index panel, mixing in or amalgamating all the indexes. It ends up being messy.

W should be able to create SEPARATE indexes using the Index feature: (1) INDEX OF FIGURES (2) INDEX OF STATUTES, (3) INDEX OF TABLES (4) INDEX OF FLOWCHARTS and (5) INDEX OF GRAPHS. All populate every page number of every mentioned item (tables, figure, statute, flowchart etc).

Let's do this — update the program

David

I'm on InDesign 17.3 on an Intel iMac Pro (2017) running macOS 12.4 (Monterey), though I have the same problem on my new M1 MacBook Pro (same OS). No matter what I do, no matter what preferences I reset or cache I clear, I can't generate a table of contents with the page numbers before the listing, or generate a table of contents in alphabetical order instead of page order. I know it worked at one point, because I painstakingly created a paragraph style with nested styles to automatically generate my table of contents for the monthly magazine I make. At some point, though, page number before entry and alphabetical listing just stopped being a thing, even though the options still appear to be available.

I use two levels of ToC (Main and sub headings). On right-facing pages in a spread, the main heading (TOC-1) appears below the sub-headings (TOC-2) in the Table Of Contents.

Consider the two attached files. The page shown in Toc problem-1 is a right-facing page in the book. The Level 1 heading is "Audible Signals," and the three Level 2 subheads are "Train Whistle/Horn Signals, Train Buzzer Signals, and Tower Whistle/Horn signals. This SHOULD appear with Audible Signals as the top-level and the other three below it. On a LEFT FACING page it works correctly. On a right-facing page it does not. The second file, Bad TOC.jpg, shows what happens on a right-facing page. Two of the subheads get grouped with the previous section.

The fix for this needs to be a Level-1 heading, on a right-facing page of a two-page spread, must always take precedence over Level 2 leadings.

Hello everyone,
I am currently working on a manual in InDesign (version: 17.0.1) created in the "Book" function.
I created a first "Table of Contents" that I can edit without problem.
For the purpose of the book, I have to create a second "Table of Contents".
But as soon as I want to edit this second Table of Contents, the InDesign application quits on its own.
I work on Mac. First, I "saved as" and, secondly, I did the same thing, after resetting the InDesign preferences.
I still cannot create 2 "Tables of contents" in the "Book" function.
I would like to point out that in the "Document ..." function, it works very well.

Thanks for your help!

JPierre