KB171982 - WD97: Tabs in Heading Styles Look Wrong in Table Of Contents

Article ID: 171982

Article Last Modified on 1/20/2007

Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q171982

SYMPTOMS

Page numbers in the table of contents may wrap to the next line if the text that has been designated to be included in the table of contents contains tabs.

CAUSE

By default, the TOC style used to create table of contents entries contains two tab stops: one at .5-inch and another at the right margin. If the text that the TOC entry is being created from contains more than .5-inches of text before it reaches the tab, then the first tab in the text will cause the text after the tab to appear at the right margin in the table of contents, and the page number will wrap to the next line.

WORKAROUND

To correct this problem, in the table of contents entry, drag the .5-inch tab marker to the desired location. To do this, follow these steps:

Position the insertion point on the line in the table of contents that is incorrectly formatted.
On the ruler, click on the .5-inch tab marker and drag it to the right until it is slightly beyond the text that is on the left side of the table of contents entry.

For example, if the document text that was tagged for a table of contents entry is "INTRODUCTION <tab> DAY 1," drag the .5-inch tab to just beyond the word INTRODUCTION (about 1.25 inches on the ruler). This should correct the table of contents entry so that it resembles the following:

              tab                                                 tab
               |                                                   |
               |                                                   |
              \ /                                                 \ / 
               V                                                   V
 0----------1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6
 INTRODUCTION->DAY 1...............................................1

Because the TOC styles of the table of contents entries are defined by default to have "Automatically Update" enabled, changing one occurrence of the TOC style will automatically change all occurrences of this style.

STATUS

This functionality is by design of Microsoft Word 97 and is different from functionality in Microsoft Word 6.x and 7.x. In Microsoft Word 6.x and 7.x, tabs in table of contents entries are replaced with a single space.

Microsoft Word 97 will retain the space in the table of contents entry, but it may cause formatting problems in certain situations.

MORE INFORMATION

The following example illustrates how this may happen.

Correct Formatting

If you enter the following text and format it with a style that you will base a table of contents on (for example, Heading 1)

   INTRO <tab> DAY 1

and you then create a table of contents based on that (Heading 1 in this example), the following may occur:

The TOC style of the table of contents will be formatted with a tab stop at .5-inch and one at the right margin. If you formatted your document on 8.5-by-11-inch paper with 1.25-inch left and right margins, the ruler settings will resemble the following example.

      tab                                                         tab
       |                                                           |
       |                                                           |
      \ /                                                         \ / 
       V                                                           V
 0----------1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6
 INTRO->Day 1......................................................1

Incorrect Formatting

If you enter the following text and format it with a style that you will base a table of contents on (for example, Heading 1)

   INTRODUCTION <tab> DAY 1

and you then create a table of contents based on the style you used for the text, the following may occur:

The TOC style of the table of contents will be formatted with a tab stop at .5-inch and one at the right margin. If you format your document as 8.5-by-11 inches with 1.25 inch left and right margins, the ruler settings will look like this:

      tab                                                         tab
       |                                                           |
       |                                                           |
      \ /                                                         \ / 
       V                                                           V
 0----------1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6
 INTRODUCTION           -->                                    DAY 1
 ......1

Note Because the word "INTRODUCTION" is longer than .5-inch, the tab between INTRODUCTION and DAY is moved to the next tab stop (at 6.0 inches), and the page number wraps to the next line.

REFERENCES

For more information about automatically updating styles, click the Office Assistant, type "automatically updating styles," click Search, and then click "Have Word automatically update styles."

For more information about tabs in a table of contents, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

167620 WD97: TOC Styles Don't Have Tab Stop When Applied Manually

For more information about creating and formatting a table of contents, click the Office Assistant, type "table of contents," click Search, and then click one of the topics.

Note If the Assistant is hidden, click the Office Assistant button on the Standard toolbar. If Word Help is not installed on your computer, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

120802 Office: How to Add/Remove a Single Office Program or Component

Additional query words: tc fields figures authorities

Keywords: kbprb KB171982