Moving the page number in a table of contents to the left of the titles with tocloft

Question

I would like to move the page number from the right-hand side of a table of contents to the left, using tocloft. The page number should still be right-aligned.

The question has already been answered here for titletoc, but I would like to know if there is a way to achieve the same using tocloft. The question referred to suggests not, but I would like to check anyway.

I start with a MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\RequirePackage[titles]{tocloft}

\makeatletter

\renewcommand{\cftsecpresnum}{\begin{lrbox}{\@tempboxa}}
\renewcommand{\cftsecaftersnum}{\end{lrbox}}
\setlength{\cftsecnumwidth}{0pt}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{Section 1 title}
\lipsum[1-2]
\section{Section 2 title}
\lipsum[3-4]
\end{document}

That produces this:

page numbers on right

I am trying to move the page numbers to the other side:

page numbers on left

And in case you're wondering, this is what I'm actually trying to achieve (without the blue lines). I've done the rest of the formatting successfully using tocloft, which is why I would prefer to continue using that package rather than switching to titletoc.

picture of final aim

score 3 · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-04T18:15:19.167

3

This update achieves right alignment, as explained in my added comment. The defect is that it will not work if \thepage is not the standard representation with digits. Also the placement of the page number is not so good in the case of multiline section titles.

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\RequirePackage[titles]{tocloft}

\newcount\cnta
\cftsetpnumwidth{0pt}
\renewcommand\cftsecpagefont {\global\cnta}
\renewcommand\cftsecafterpnum {%
  \makebox[0pt][l]%
     {\kern-\dimexpr\linewidth+2em\relax\makebox[1em][r]{\the\cnta}}%
}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{First section}
\lipsum[1]
\clearpage
\setcounter{page}{13}
\section{Second section}
\lipsum[2]
\clearpage
\setcounter{page}{315}
\section{A very very very very very veryvery very veryvery very veryvery very
  veryvery very very long section title} 
\end{document}

Without hacking tocloft internal redefinition of \l@section I don't think there is a way. Here is an attempt though. Defects

the section titles should not extend on multiple lines
the page numbers will be left aligned, not right aligned

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\RequirePackage[titles]{tocloft}

\cftsetpnumwidth{0pt}
\renewcommand{\cftpnumalign}{l}
\toks0 \expandafter{\cftsecpagefont}
\edef\cftsecpagefont {\kern-\dimexpr\linewidth+2em\relax\the\toks0 }

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{First section}
\lipsum[1]
\section{Second section}
\lipsum[2]
\section{A very very very very very veryvery very veryvery very veryvery very
  veryvery very very long section title} 
\end{document}

With package etoc one may obtain all of your layout.

edited Apr 04 '14 at 18:15

answered Apr 04 '14 at 17:59

I thought later about a hacky way, but only if \thepage prints out arabic numbers. The idea is to redefine \cftsecpagefont to be something like \global\acount with \acount a count registers. Then \cftsecafterpnum will do the page number placement: the advantage is that we can get it right aligned then, however it will still be difficult to position it higher up in case of multiline section name. – Apr 04 '14 at 18:06
i've never done this with tocloft, only with plain tex (see the tugboat toc for the relevant example). see whether it's possible to reorder the pieces that go into a toc line, setting the page number as the first element, followed by the rest, with the text hanging indented to the appropriate distance -- in other words, treating the whole thing as a hanging indented (ragged right) paragraph. – barbara beeton Apr 04 '14 at 18:24
@barbarabeeton using etoc and LaTeX2e all of this re-shuffling is easy to achieve. The page number is available as \etocpage, the section number as \etocnumber, the section title as \etocname. – Apr 04 '14 at 18:27
@jfbu I think it would be a nice addition to your answer if you could provide the actual code with etoc; it would show the power of the package. On a second thought, the question asks specifically for tocloft, so perhaps this is not the place to show the power of etoc? – Gonzalo Medina Apr 04 '14 at 18:33
@GonzaloMedina yes, I think this might not be the place... besides, power comes at the prize of having to define the line styles... and once one starts one has to do it for part, section, subsection... this is why I tried to say here in the tocloft theme. – Apr 04 '14 at 18:45
Thanks @jfbu, @barbara and @gonzalo. I did want to do this with tocloft, as I'd already done all my formatting with that (which took me ages) and I didn't fancy trying to re-do it all in titletoc with the chance that something else wouldn't be supported. However, @jfbu pointed out etoc (which I hadn't heard of) on another question of mine, and I've found that it's actually been fairly quick to customise my TOC as required. I'm almost there, but will come back and have another look at this question shortly. I've been posting my questions separately in order to try and keep things simple. – abeverley Apr 04 '14 at 18:46

Moving the page number in a table of contents to the left of the titles with tocloft

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