Dot Leaders Disappear in Word 2013 Index

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I’ve been working for months on a file in Word 2013. The index has been fine, but suddenly, the dot leaders have disappeared. I didn’t make any format changes between the file that showed them and the one that didn’t. I’m using Styles, and the styles show dot leaders. The index is there and formatted correctly, but no dot leaders.

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Can you post a non-proprietary sample of your index with the problem?

“the styles show dot leaders” Which styles?

Any intervening tab characters? Check by displaying non-printing formatting characters.

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I would be checking on the option for the attached template to see if the styles are set to refresh when opening. If style changes don’t stick this is usually the issue.

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I see this fairly often with TOC styles. Most of the time the right tab on the right margin is still there and you can just click the radio button for dot leaders in the tabs dialog. Both sets of styles (TOC and index) are set to automatically update, but they do not update all types of formatting. If they do not update the dot leaders or other tab changes, you can update them yourself by placing the cursor in the index X paragraph you changed, going to the index X style in the Styles pane and, clicking update Index X to match selection.

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