Need to know how to create dot leaders/tab in Table of Contents format 1

[csb2333]

Hi - New user to InDesign and creating a 16-page tradeshow guide. Would like to create dot leader between page name and number in the table of contents and cannot figure out how to do this. Can someone please advise ASAP? Thanks!

 

[jimoblak]

This is done in the tab palette.

 

[csb2333]

Yes I know that, but once in the tab palette I must not be doing something correctly as I can't create the leaders.

 

[jimoblak]

Select/highlight your text to modify. Go to the Tab palette. Select/highlight (or create) the tab marker to apply a leader to. Type a character in the leader box and hit the enter key.

If this does not seem simple enough, check that InDesign is fully patched with any free updates from adobe.com. There was a bug at one point that affected the Tab palette. Maybe that is what you are experiencing.

 

[Ekwoman]

It sounds like you're trying to do this when creating a Table of Contents, yes? You can't just type in the leader dot in that dialog. To use leader dots within an auto-generated TOC, you need to set the tabs and leaders into a paragraph style...then choose that style as your entry style and enter tab (^t) as the separator between entry and page number.

I really think the auto TOC function falls short here...because doing it this way, you have to know WHERE you want your tab to be (like at 4" or whatever). You can't choose the right indent tab (^y) with leader dots...which would be great because if you resize the text frame with your TOC text, the tab stays to the right. If you do it by using styles (the only way to accomplish it with auto TOC), and you re-size the TOC text frame, you'll have to re-define your style with the new tab placement...hope that makes sense!