[Cliff[_2_]]

When I have a TOC field with the \* MERGEFORMAT switch and then update the
field (F9), any formats I have applied disappear.

This is a problem because my TOC fields inherit condensed character spacing
from the captions in the body of the document. (I have condensed the spacing
in some captions so that they fit.) This makes for a TOC with uneven spacing
(the lines that refer to captions with normal spacing have normal spacing;
those to condensed, condensed.) I try to correct this by manually applying
"normal" spacing to the TOC, but as soon as I update the TOC, the respective
lines get all scrunched up again. Adding MERGEFORMAT has no effect!