TABLE OF CONTENTS

If you’re here, there is every likely holder that you had to deal with a really long document in Microsoft Word at least once. It could be an academic paper or a lengthy report. Depending on the project, it might be dozens or even hundreds of pages long! When you have such a big document with chapters and subchapters, it turns out to be very hard to navigate in the document search for necessary information. Luckily, Word allows you to create a table of contents, making easy to refer to the relevant sections of your document, and therefore, it is a must-do task for document writers.

You could create a table of contents manually, but it would be a real waste of time. Let MS Word do it automatically for you.

The key to creating a quick and easy contents page is to use MS Word’s built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) for the titles (chapters) and subtitles (subchapters) of your document.

On one hand, the heading styles greatly simplify your work and present your document in a structured fashion. On the other hand, when you insert a table of contents, Word automatically searches for those headings and displays a table of contents based on the text that you marked with each style. Later, you can also use these headings to update your table of contents. Follow the steps below to assign headings for you titles:

1. Highlight the title or the text you want to be the title of your first main section
2. Go to the HOME tab in the Ribbon
3. Search for the styles group

Choose Heading 1

So now you have assigned the first main section of your document. Keep it up! Go on scrolling through the text and selecting the primary section titles. Apply the “Heading 1” style to these titles. The will appear in your table of contents as the main section titles.

Next, define the secondary sections within each primary chapter, and apply the “Heading 2” style to the subtitles of these sections.

If you want to place emphasis on some paragraphs within the Secondary sections, then you can select the titles for them and apply the “Heading 3” style to these titles. You can also take advantage of the “Heading 4-9” styles for creating additional heading levels.

MULTILEVEL LISTING

If you want your table of Contents to be more presentable, you will want to add a numbering scheme to the titles and subtitles of your document. Follow the steps below:

1. Highlight the first main title.
2. Find the Paragraph group on the HOME tab in the Ribbon
3. Click the Multilevel List button in the group
4. Select the style from the List Library options.

Here comes the number of the first main title

Go round for the other main titles, but now when the number appears next to the title, click the lightening box and choose “continue numbering”. It will make the numbers go up.

As for the subtitle, highlight one, press the TAB button on your keyboard, and then choose the same Multilevel List option. It will design the Subtitles of the secondary sections with the numbers like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. as in the screenshot below. You can also choose another option os that they look differently.

Keep the ball rolling throughout the document for all of your sections.

HOW TO CREATE A TABLE OF CONTENT

Now, you have your document well-prepared with the titles as Heading! And the subtitles as Heading 2. It’s time to let the Microsoft Word do its magic!

1. Place the cursor where you want the table of contents to appear in the document.
2. Navigate to the References tab in the Ribbon
3. Click the Table of Contents button in the Table of Contents group.
4. Choose one of the “Automatic” table of content styles listed.

Here you are! Your table of contents looks like this:

A Table of contents also create links for each section, allowing you to navigate to different parts of your document. Just hold the Ctrl Key on your keyboard and click to go to any section.

HOW TO MODIFY TABLE OF CONTENT

If you are not satisfied with the look of your table of contents, you can always change root and branch of it. To do so, you need to open the table of Contents dialog box.

1. Click within the table of contents.
2. Go to References > Table of Contents.
3. Select the “Custom Table of Contents …” command from the button’s drop-down menu.

The dialog box appears and displays the Table of Contents tab where you can customize the style and appearances of your table of contents.

If you want to change the way the text in your table of contents looks (the font, font size, colour, etc.), you need to follow the steps below in the Table of Contents dialog box.

1. Make sure that you have chosen “From Template” in the Formats box.
2. Click the Modify button at the bottom right to open the following window.

The Modify Style dialog box displays:

• Make changes to the formatting and click Ok.
• Select another style to modify and repeat
• When you have completed the editing, click Ok to exit
• Click Ok to replace the table of contents.

HOW TO UPDATE A TABLE OF CONTENT

A Table of Contents is a field, not ordinary text. For this reason it doesn’t update automatically. Once you make any changes to your documents structure, you have to update the table of contents yourself. To perform the update, follow these steps:

1. Click anywhere in the table of contents
2. Press F9 or the Update Table button in the Content control (or on the Reference tab).
3. Use the Update Table of Contents dialog box to choose what to update
4. Click Ok

You can choose to update page numbers only, or the entire table. It is a good idea always to choose “Update entire table” in case you have made any other changes. Always update your table of contents before sending out or printing the document so that any changes are included.

No matter how big your document is, you can see there’s nothing complicated about creating a table of contents. The best way to learn how to create/update a table of contents is to experiment doing it. Take some time to go through the process and create your own table of contents.