Using tocloft getting chapter height problems

Question

As shown in my MWE I'm using tocloft to add dots next to my chapters in the TOC. It works, but for a reason I don't know, the headings of the TOC, LOF, LOT are not on the same height as the regular chaptertitles anymore. MWE:

\documentclass[pdftex, 12pt, oneside]{book}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{tocloft}
 \renewcommand\cftchapaftersnum{.}
 \renewcommand{\cftchapleader}{\cftdotfill{\cftdotsep}}
\usepackage{titlesec}
 \titleformat{\chapter}{\huge\bfseries}{\thechapter}{20pt}{\huge}
 \titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{10pt}{30pt}
\usepackage[paper = a4paper, margin = 1in]{geometry}

\begin{document}
 \frontmatter
  \tableofcontents
 \mainmatter
  \chapter*{Chapter without number}
   \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Chapter without number}
    Hello world!
  \chapter{Chapter with number}
    Hello world, again!
\end{document}

Does anyone has an idea why that's so and has a solution for my problem?

Answer 1

The tocloft package, by default, discards customization made by other packages to how chapter titles are typeset, for what concerns the table of contents and the list of figures or tables.

In order to avoid this behavior, you have to load it with the titles option:

\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}

---

Some comments about your code.

I would add \hspace{\cftchapnumwidth} to the unnumbered chapter entry.

\documentclass[12pt, oneside]{book}
\usepackage[paper = a4paper, margin = 1in]{geometry}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\usepackage{titlesec}

\renewcommand\cftchapaftersnum{.}
\renewcommand{\cftchapleader}{\cftdotfill{\cftdotsep}}

\titleformat{\chapter}{\huge\bfseries}{\thechapter}{20pt}{\huge}
\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{10pt}{30pt}

\begin{document}
\frontmatter

\tableofcontents

\mainmatter

\chapter*{Chapter without number}
  \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\protect\hspace{\cftchapnumwidth}Chapter without number}

Hello world!

\chapter{Chapter with number}

Hello world, again!

\end{document}

You might want to avoid \chapter* and the clumsy \addcontentsline command with

\newcommand{\uchapter}[1]{%
  \chapter*{#1}%
  \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\protect\hspace{\cftchapnumwidth}#1}%
}

A more common trick that works without tocloft is typing \protect\numberline{} instead of \protect\hspace{...}; in this case it would add an unwanted period.