Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I have one minor problem with the index format which I will live with if I have to, but would prefer to fix if it is possible. Between the index entry and the page numbers, I usually have a line of dots, but in the case where the list of pages is long, there may be only one dot, or none at all. Is there some way of setting a minimum length for this line of dots?

I think you're stuck with it.

Writer's index/ToC formatting depends on tab stop layout. Positioning of the tab and leading is all internal and (as far as I know) there are no settings to adjust it.

I choose to post here, as it is somewhat relevant to my question, instead of making a new topic. I have a single problem with the layout of my index: Page numbers are tabbed, so when I have titles spanning more than the width of the table, the page number ends up on line two. Also, depending on where a title’s word is line-broken, it might spill into the ‘column’ for page numbers. How can this, if at all, be fixed? Is it e.g. possible to make an automated index in a table instead of in tabbed columns as I’ve done?
Screenshot provided for reference; please note the overflow in e.g. Ⅱ.1 and Ⅲ.2.1, and how the page number appears on the line below, both the places mentioned as well as e.g. Ⅱ.2 and Ⅲ.2.

Workaround:
Edit the ToC field. For each ToC level, in the Entries tab you insert a few characters (in your case you need non-breaking space, see below) in the TOC structure between the Entry and the Tabulation (E marker and T marker, respectively). This works for index entries too.

Visible characters (dots, dashes, underscore) can be typed directly into the "structure" field in the dialog. For special characters like the non-breaking space, you need to type them into the document, then cut it and paste into the dialog.

It works for the lines that are just too long to push the page number to the next line, but it does not solve the problem for lines that overflow into the page number column, and then to the next line. But thank you for the tip; it is nice to know.

I think this is due to the index layout depending on tabs alone. There are problems like this that pure text and tabs cannot handle.

The only way to fully over come it may be to manually format entries to add some line breaks, or maybe even convert the text into a full table.

The big problem (beside the amount of manual fiddling) is that updating the index will remove all the manual changes. The workaround for that is to ignore the minor problems and leave the manual changes until the very, very end.

Which is the solution I’ve had to choose when dealing with smaller papers. I’ll add [Solved: Partial workaround] at the top to my post, to close this one then, but a moderator will have to do it to the original post. Were it up to me, and I had the skills, the index should’ve been made as a table instead of tabulated text, though I suppose that is a suggestion worthy of a small version increase.