For control of layout of an entry in a Table of Contents - is it possible to include a tab character in an index entry (added via menu: insert > Table of Contents and Index > Index Entry…). the tab key advances to the next field in the dialog.
Right click the TOC and select Edit Table of Contents, you can add a tab stop in the dialogue in the Entries tab. It will apply to all entries at that level, see Entries (table of contents)
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Note that you can manually edit the TOC for a single but it will be overwritten on the next update of TOC.
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If this is not what you meant, maybe you could give a more complete description of what your goal is for the TOC and maybe a small sample
Not exactly, I wish to have TOC that has entries with multiple sub-items on a single line separated by tab character. I might be able to work around the limitation for my needs by adding some spaces in the entry.
Provide an example of what you want. What are your “sub-items”?
Index (not TOC) entries can have 3 levels. These three levels are not separated by tab characters. They are separate paragraphs (entries) you format through specific paragraph styles. The entries themselves can be laid out with a “structure line” similar the the TOC one.
Also mention OS name, LO version and save format.The latter is the most important because of the required use of the styles feature.
@ajlittoz for what it is worth - This is on Windows 10 operating system, version LO 24.8.4.2, saved in LO’s native file formats (this will eventually print to pdf for final distribution).
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Here attached is a sample mock-up, representing what will be mostly workable:
Constructed Index entry test.odt (14.2 KB)
This is a simplification of what I am doing with some master-document and sub-documents. The facilities available in Libre Office seem to be barely up to this kind of thing, but I think I will be able to get to some arrangement that I can eventually get by with while working around the several bugs/limitations I have encountered along the way.
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Regarding this question in particular, you may notice my liberal usage of dashes to separate subordinate items within a single line in my table of contents. This is not ideal, and my preference would be to define tab stops or some other means to have precise control of horizontal placements. My workaround idea to add spaces did not work because multiple spaces in a table of contents entry are collapsed in the TOC, so spaces also can’t be used to pad things out as needed.
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As an aside: the page number stuff that I have in there works around some limitations in LO page numbering, and is also sub-optimal. it would be nice to have the ability to construct such a complex page numbering and have the TOC right align it - but instead I just have everything in the TOC entry and have adjusted the applicable TOC paragraph style to be justified to sort-of get what I am needing to do.
breadcrumbs on page numbering follow:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88813
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71583
There also may be a bug where TOC page number elements are not right aligning, which I have not tried to pick apart yet, my presently available time needs to be put to the actual task instead of bug hunting.