Designing a Table of Content

Question

This is one area that I believe needs to be expanded. I have CS5.5 and there is a very small amount of options when designing a Table of Contents. I can't get it to look the way I want but I can get so close. Here is what I'm looking for and maybe you can help me find the right code.
Title__________________________________1-1
Next Title______________________________1-2
Third Title______________________________1-3
I have individual - stand-alone documents (each being a separate "chapter" of a whole document). What I've been able to accomplish so far is I've got the page numbers to align on the right hand side but I can’t get that “1-“ or “2-“ chapter number or the underline that goes from the end of the page title to the page number. I’ve seen underlines like this in many documents so it can’t be that obscure that they wouldn’t add that option in this program. I have to be missing something.
Thanks,
Kyle

Answer 1

Lets start with the numbers. How is th echapter number making it onto the document pages? is it a section prefix entered into the Numbering & Section dialog, or something else? A section prefix included in the page number should find its way into the TOC without doing anything special at all.
Now for the underline. Any character can be underlined. Just select it and go to Underline Options and turn it on. In this case what you are trying to do is apply that underline to all the tabs, and there are actually two ways to do this automatically, but both require you to create a character style that is nothing more than turning on the underline and setting a weight, stroke type and offset for it. You can use a solid line, dashed, dotted, etc., for this custom underline which means you can get pretty much any look you want.
The first method is to simply apply the style to the tab in the TOC dialog -- you have the opprotunity to apply a character style to whatever you've entered into the "Between Entry and Number" field by choosing a style in the next field to the right (you need to have the additional options showing). This will push that underline tight up against the text on both ends, though, and I like a little bit of breathing space, so I use the second method.
In my method you add some space on either side of your tab (thin space, sixth space, your choice) in the field, and do not apply a style there. Instead, create a paragraph style for the lisitngs (which you should do anyway), then add a nested style like this: None up to 1 tab (or right indent tab, if you've used that) character, your new underline style through 1 character. This leaves the spaces on either side without the underline as well as the listing text and numbers. You can, of course, add another character style at the end to change the numbers, too, if you like, for example to bold or italic. I use this method to make forms for printing with lines where people need to write something. Adjusting the tabs adjusts the length of the lines.