Formatting Table of Contents in Pages

Question

Level 1

9 points

Formatting Table of Contents in Pages

How do I format my table of contents in Pages so the page number appears before the chapter heading (instead of after which seems to be default)? I have looked in the "text" panel of the TOC tab, the styles panel, and the pulldown menus but can't seem to figure out how to make the TOC formatted the way I'd like it to look. Below (left) is how it is formatted automatically by Pages (with some tweaking on my end). Below (right) is how I'd like it to look with the page number first and in a different color (grey) than the chapter heading.

MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2012), macOS Sierra (10.12.5), null

Posted on Jul 9, 2017 8:36 PM

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Answer 1

Yellowbox

Level 7

20,909 points

Jul 10, 2017 5:14 AM in response to T. Ellis

Hi T.Ellis,

There are limited options for formatting a table of contents. There is a way to give the appearance that you want, but it will lose functionality.

Click in the TOC to select it.

Copy.

Insert a table. Format Panel > Arrange > Stay on Page.

Insert some new lines to push the Section Break down and keep the table within that section..

Click once on the table to select it. Click again on Cell A1 to make it active.

Paste.

Delete unwanted table columns to the right.

Swap the positions of Column A and Column B.

Adjust the column widths.

Adjust the text indents if necessary.

Select Column A and choose a grey text colour.

Remove the alternating row colours, cell borders and table gridlines, if any.

You now have a table that fits the appearance that you want for a TOC. However, the page numbers have lost their links; they are plain numbers. The table will not update as you add new TOC entries.

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 2

Jul 10, 2017 5:37 AM in response to T. Ellis

No version of Pages gives you the ability to have Table of Content styles, or place the page numbers before the text. Because LibreOffice (with frustrating effort) will allow one to drag the page numbers before the text, and omit the leader dots — this suggests that MS Word can do this as well, if it doesn't already have a ToC Style selection.

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