Spacing in table of contents

[jay fresno]

Is there a way to adjust, to increase, the minimum amount of spacing between a table of contents entry and it's page number for single line paragraphs? I know that I can insert non-breaking spaces in long paragraphs, but if a paragraph fits on one line, that doesn't help.

The screen grab below shows an entry on the first line that is too close to the page number. The second line is the way I want it to look, but I have to do a forced return to set it up. Of couse, when I re-generate the table of contents the forced return disappears, so I'm hoping that there is another technique.

If editing the frame.ini file would control the spacing, how woiuld that be implemented?

I'm cross-posting this in the scripting forum in case there is a way to script it.

If anyone can tell me if this is NOT possible, I'd appreciate that too (so that I know not to keep trying to think of workarounds).

[Van Kurtz · Accepted solution]

Jay,

The method I use is not obvious but works because of the way FrameMaker seems to work.

For EACH paragraph format used in your TOC, the ones ending in TOC, open the paragraph designer. One of the tabs (cannot remember which one) has a place to specify spacing adjustments. There are three boxes: minimum, optimum, and maximum. Typically, the minimum is set to 75%, the optimum to 100%, and the maximum to 125%. Add 100, or 200, or 300% to the minimum AND the maximum, BUT NOT the optimum, which remains at 100%. For example, the minimum could be 175%, the optimum 100%, and the maximum 225%. Click Update All. I would do this in the template file, and then import the paragraph formats into all the files in your book. Then update the book.

I THINK FrameMaker tries to adjust the spacing using the minimum and maximum, determines where to break the line, and then sets the spacing to the optimum 100%. The result is a line break a short space before the end of the line. You can experiment. The more you add to minimum and maximum, the longer the space between the line break and the end of the line.

Van

[jay fresno]

Van,

Thank you so much for this fantastic workaround. I don't understand what is going on behind the scenes for FrameMaker to make this decision (although I'd like to), but it certainly works.