Dot Leader Sporadically Missing from Table of Contents

Anonymous
2012-04-18T23:56:07+00:00

I am updating an automatic table of contents.  I'm using Word 2010.  There are dot leaders for each toc entry.  However, for several (but not all) of the new toc entries, the entry appears with the page number, but with no dot leader.  I've deleted the item and re-entered, re-formatted and done everything else I can think of and nothing works.  Help??

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2012-05-22T18:43:08+00:00

Considering just the entries that are missing the period leaders, are those entries much shorter or longer than the other entries? Often this problem is a result of placement of tab stops in the relevant TOC style; in that case, however, the problem also results in page numbers being in the wrong place as well as lacking leaders. The situation arises when there is a tab stop (or hanging indent) fairly far to the right in the TOC style. A very short entry will stop short of this tab stop, and so the tab that should go to the right-aligned tab stop at the right margin (for the page numbers, with leader) instead stops at the first tab stop/hanging indent.

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  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2013-02-19T18:21:02+00:00

    What version of Word is this? Long titles that wrap to a hanging indent should not cause a problem, but there are issues with wrapped lines in Word 2013: if  you set a right indent to wrap the lines short of the page number, Word doesn't honor the tab stop for the page number (it doesn't honor tabs outside the margin or to the right of a right indent).

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-01-02T16:36:30+00:00

    Hi, it works for that too. 

    i had faced similar like, the level 1 & 2 dot leaders were not appearing, but the 3 level is fine. Then i tried the above it works fine.

    Fewer times i succeeded by copying and pasting in the new file. But the only problem is, if that have more number pages and required reformatting.

    Anyway thanks for your reply

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2013-01-02T14:41:09+00:00

    This applies if none of the entries have leaders, but the original question was about missing leaders in specific entries.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-07-27T13:22:20+00:00

    Thanks Suzanne. This also applies to Word 2003.

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