Add content in word

Insert a table of contents

A table of contents in Word is based on the headings in your document.

Create the table of contents

1. Put your cursor where you want to add the table of contents.

2. Go to References > Table of Contents. and choose an automatic style.

   

3. If you make changes to your document that affect the table of contents, update the table of contents by right-clicking the table of contents and choosing Update Field.

To update your table of contents manually, see Update a table of contents.

If you have missing entries

Missing entries often happen because headings aren’t formatted as headings.

1. For each heading that you want in the table of contents, select the heading text.

2. Go to Home > Styles, and then choose Heading 1.

   

3. Update your table of contents.

To update your table of contents manually, see Update a table of contents.

Create the table of contents

Word uses the headings in your document to build an automatic table of contents that can be updated when you change the heading text, sequence, or level.

1. Click where you want to insert the table of contents – usually near the beginning of a document.

2. Click References > Table of Contents and then choose an Automatic Table of Contents style from the list.

   Note: If you use a Manual Table of Contents style, Word won’t use your headings to create a table of contents and won’t be able to update it automatically. Instead, Word will use placeholder text to create the look of a table of contents so you can manually type each entry into the table of contents. To update your manual table of contents, see Update a table of contents.

   

If you want to Format or customize your table of contents, you can. For example, you can change the font, the number of heading levels, and whether to show dotted lines between entries and page numbers.

If you have missing entries

Missing entries often happen because headings aren’t formatted as headings.

1. For each heading that you want in the table of contents, select the heading text.

2. Go to Home > Styles, and then choose Heading 1.

   

3. Update your table of contents.

To update your table of contents manually, see Update a table of contents.

Word uses the headings in your document to build an automatic table of contents that can be updated when you change the heading text, sequence, or level.

1. Click where you want to insert the table of contents—usually near the beginning of the document.

2. On the toolbar ribbon, select References. 

3. Near the left end, select Insert Table of Contents. (Or select Table of Contents > Insert Table of Contents. 

   The table of contents is inserted, showing the headings and page numbering in your document.

If you make changes to your document that affect the table of contents, you can update it by right-clicking the table and selecting Update Table of Contents.

Get the learning guide

For a hands-on guide that steps you through the process of creating a table of contents, download our Table of Contents tutorial. Or, in desktop Word, go to File > New, and search for table of contents.

See Also

Update a table of contents 

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The table of contents should be placed at the start of your document and serves two purposes: Allows readers to find a specific section within the document with easy and gives them an overview of the document’s content and layout. The table of content is there to orient the reader, think of it as a roadmap to your Word Document.

Gone are the days of manually creating a table of contents in Microsoft Word. There is now a quick 2 step process that will create a contents table for you based on the text selected.

In this post we will show you how to create a table of content to your Microsoft Word document at the click of a button.

Creating a table of Contents in Microsoft Word

To create a table of contents you will first need to have the text pre-written into your Microsoft Word Document before following these simple steps:

1. Open Word
2. Select the text you wish to turn into the table of contents
3. Find and click References in the toolbar

1. Click Table on Content under the toolbar dropdown

1. Select the style you would like the Table of Content to display in. (In this example, we selected ‘Formal’)

You have now successfully add a table of contents to your Microsoft Word Document.

If the information did not pull correctly and you are missing some entries you may not have correctly formatted before selecting ‘table of contents’. We’ll walk you through how to fix this below.

Missing entries from Microsoft Word Table of Contents

Missing entries usually happen because the headings were not formatted as headings prior to the table of contents being added to your Word Document.

For every heading you want to display in your table of contents, the text must be turned into a ‘heading’

Heres how to turn text into a Heading:

1. Open Word
2. Highlight the missing entry text within the Word Document
3. Select Styles in the toolbar
4. Under the Styles drop-down, find and click Heading 1. This will turn the highlighted text into a heading.

1. Repeat the above steps for all missing text.
2. Update your table of contents by following the steps above (‘Creating a table of Contents in Microsoft Word’)

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This Contents Page in Word tutorial is suitable for users of Word 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word for Microsoft 365.  

Objective 

Create a Table of Contents for a Word document and update it to add new entries.  

Table of Contents Explained 

A Table of Contents page makes it easier for your readers to navigate and work with long documents. It gives documents a professional look and feel and helps you jump to a specific section quickly and easily.  

A Table of Contents is usually inserted at the beginning of a document or just after a cover page. It can be modified to fit the overall style of the document and be updated easily with one click when new headings and paragraphs are added to the document.

The golden rule, when creating a contents page, is good preparation.

A Table of Contents relies on the document being formatted with heading styles in order to work correctly. Word scans the document and looks for anything marked with a heading style and pulls it through into the contents page. You can choose how many heading levels you would like to include.  

In this screenshot, I have pulled through 3 levels of heading.  

Method 

In this example, I am going to go through the process of creating, modifying, and updating a Table of Contents in Word for a document titled ‘The Solar System’.  

Prepare the Word document 

In order to successfully insert a Table of Contents page, you must first set-up the document correctly by using Word styles to denote headings.  

Switching to Draft View 

You may find it easier to view your document in draft mode when working with styles, as it makes it easy to see which headings you’ve applied to which items.  

1. Click the View tab 

1. Click Draft 

The style currently applied to each paragraph will display on the left-hand side of the document. Normal denotes no style has been applied.  

NOTE: When you switch to Draft view, if you do not see the style pane on the left-hand side, you will need to go into Word Options and turn it on.  

1. Click the File tab 

1. Click Options 

1. Click the Advanced tab 

1. Scroll down the Display section 

If you cannot see the styles pane, it will say 0 inches. Set this to 1 – 2 inches and click OK.  

Apply heading styles to the document 

1. Select the first main heading in your document 

1. Click the Home tab 

1. In the Styles group, click Heading 1 

Scroll through the document and apply a Heading 1 style to all top-level headings 

1. Select the second-level headings in your document 

1. In the Styles group, click Heading 2 

Apply a Heading 2 to all second-level headings in the document. You can hold down the CTRL key to select multiple headings at the same time.  

Repeat this process for any other headings in the document. In this example, I have three levels of heading in my document.

Once the document is styled and organized correctly, it becomes easy to insert a Table of Contents.  

Insert the Contents Page 

A contents page is normally inserted at the beginning of the document.  

1. Scroll to the top of the document and position the cursor before the first letter of the first word in the document 

1. Press CTRL+Enter to insert a page break 

1. Click the References tab 

1. Click Table of Contents 

Word makes it simple to quickly add a Table of Contents by providing a small selection of in-built tables. In this example, I have selected Automatic Table 1.  

Hold down the CTRL key and click on a page number to jump to that page.  

Modify a Table of Contents 

You can make changes to the Table of Contents and format it as you please.  

1. Click on the Table of Contents to select it 

1. Click on the References tab 

1. Click Table of Contents 

1. Click Custom Table of Contents 

Tab leaders and levels 

Tab leaders 

Tab leaders are the dots you see between the heading and the page number in the Table of Contents. You can change these to solid lines or dashes.  

Show levels 

You can also specify how many levels of heading you want to show in the Table of Contents. For example, you might have four levels of heading in the document, but you only want to show two levels in the Table of Contents.  

1. Click OK 

If you make a change to the Table of Contents, Word will ask if you would like to replace the current Table of Contents.  

1. Click OK to replace 

Updating a Table of Contents 

It’s rare for a document to stay the same forever. New paragraphs might be added either at the end of the document or somewhere within it. With each new addition, headings are pushed on to new pages, and the new items need to be added to the Table of Contents.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to update a Table of Contents in Word.  

In this example, I’ve added a paragraph for ‘Pluto’ at the end of the document. I’ve formatted it with a heading 2 style.  

I now need to update my Table of Contents to include the additional heading.  

1. Click on the Table of Contents to select it 

1. Click the Update Table button 

Word will ask if you want to update the pages numbers only or the entire table.  

If you have reorganized your document and moved headings on to different pages but not added any new headings, you could select ‘Update page numbers only.’ For everything else, select ‘Update entire table.’  

Custom Table of Contents 

You can customize the look and feel of your Table of Contents by modifying the formatting. For example, you might decide that you want all level 2 headings to display in a bold, red font.  

1. Click on the Table of Contents to select it 

1. Click on the References tab 

1. Click Table of Contents 

1. Click Custom Table of Contents 

1. Click Modify 

Modifying ‘TOC 1’ will affect all level 1 headings. Modifying ‘TOC 2’ will affect all level 2 headings and so on.  

1. Select TOC 1 

1. Click Modify 

1. Make the desired formatting changes 

1. Click OK 

Video Tutorial 

To see a demo of how to create a Contents Page in Word, please watch the following video tutorial.  

How to create a Contents Page in Word Video (15:09) 

For more Free Microsoft Office tutorials from Simon Sez IT. Take a look at our MS Office Resource Center.

To learn Word with Simon Sez IT. Take a look at the Word courses we have available.

Want to add a table of contents to your Word document, one that can be easily updated if you change your doc? It’s a cinch to use this helpful feature. All you have to do is format your Word document appropriately.

To insert your table of contents:

1. Format your document using heading styles found on the Home tab, e.g., Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on. Word will create your table of contents based on these headings, so do this for all of the text you want to show up in the table of contents.

2. Place the cursor where you want the table of contents to appear (usually, the beginning of the document)

3. Click Table of Contents on the References Tab, and choose one of the types of tables of contents available.

The two automatic tables can be updated when you change the heading text, rearrange the order of your content, or change between heading styles. (They only differ by either saying «Contents» or «Table of Contents» at the top.)

Alternatively, if you click the Custom Table of Contents… option, you can format the way the table of contents will look: Choose a different style, hide page numbers, include more heading levels than the default three levels, and more.

If you choose instead to create a manual table of contents, Word will add dummy text to the table instead of using your headings, you’ll have to manually type in each entry, and Word won’t be able to update the table of contents for you—not very much fun.

That’s it! Once you’ve chosen one of the automatic tables of contents or the custom option, Word will create the table of contents for you.

Updating the Table of Contents

To update the table of contents—for example, if you changed the heading title or page numbers have changed:

1. Click anywhere on the table of contents, then click Update Table…

2. Choose to update either the entire table or just the page numbers.

Remember to do this before you finalize your document so the table of contents will be current.

The table of contents is a finishing touch on long documents, such as reports, manuals, or books. Thankfully, you don’t have to create and manage one manually, as Word’s built-in table of contents tool does the heavy lifting for you.

• How to Add or Remove Page Breaks in Word 2016
• How to Co-Edit a Document in Word 2016
• How to Mail Merge in Office 2016

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Table of contents (TOC) on a hard binding book helps readers to quickly navigate to any particular section of the book. This is also true for e-documents created with software like Microsoft Word. It not only helps other readers but also helps you, the creator of the document, to easily navigate to different sections. Sometimes, your project may have hundreds of pages long and it can be a problem to remember which page has what information. When you’re creating such a long document or report in Microsoft Word, there is a very good chance that you’ll have to add a table of contents to go with it.

Now, that might sound like a difficult task but it really isn’t. You can add or create a table of contents in just few clicks and then go about tweaking it. Then let’s say if you want to make some changes in the table content, you don’t have to completely replace it. You just need a single click to update the table of content. Let’s learn how to create table of contents in Microsoft Word Windows and Mac versions.

There are actually several ways of adding up a table of contents in Microsoft Word. In this article, we will show you the simplest way of creating the table of contents. These methods will work mostly in all Microsoft Word versions both on Windows and Mac. One more thing which we like about Microsoft Word is that each heading in the table of contents is automatically hyperlinked. With a single click, you can easily roll over to any page or heading in your long document.

1. Before Proceeding – Structure Your Document

It’s totally up to you, you can choose whatever document you like to make a table of contents. But there is an important point before you trying to create TOC. Microsoft Word will add only heading styles 1, 2 and 3 from your document in the TOC. So, you have to keep in mind that your document should have these headings (available under Home > Styles) in an arranged format as you wanted.

If you have a document in plain body text format without headings, it’s a good idea to first structure the format with h1, h2 and h3 headings. So, let’s jump on to the step by step guide on how to add a table of contents in Microsoft Word.

2. Using Navigation Pane

Before we start adding a table of content you need to turn on the navigation pane under ‘View > Navigation Pane’ in Windows platform. This ‘Navigation’ pane will show all headings that can be included in the TOC. You can click on the heading to navigate to that section. This way you can navigate to different sections of a document without creating explicit TOC inside your document.

3. Automatically Add Table of Contents with Built-in Style

Using pre-installed styles for table of contents is one of the fastest and the most common techniques we can see. Most of the people use it and make their work faster and save a lot of time. For adding a table of content automatically, you need to be at the page where you want to add a table of content. Generally you should add the TOC at the start of the document, so go to start of the document by pressing “Control + Home” keys on Windows and “Function + Command + Left Arrow” keys on Mac. Hit enter key to create enough space, again go up to the first line and follow the below steps for inserting TOC.

• Go to the ‘References’ menu and click on the ‘Table of content’ option.
• Now, you will see all the pre-installed styles and choose the style that suits your document.
• For this guide, we are selecting the ‘Automatic Table 2’. Once selected, you will see the TOC is added at the current cursor position.

The length of TOC depends on the length of your document and the number of headings you have added to your document.

4. Using Custom Table of Contents

The TOC with built-in style works great in most cases. But there are certain cases you may need to include additional headings created with custom styles. These custom heading styles are not included in the built-in TOC. At any case, you can customize the table of contents as per your need using custom table of contents option.

In Windows, go to the ‘References’ tab, click on the ‘Table of Contents’ button. At the bottom, you’ll see ‘Custom Table of Contents’ and click on that.

Now, you’ll see a dialog box ‘Table of Content’ and click on the ‘Options’ button. It will again display another small dialog box ‘Table of Contents Options’. Here you can choose the levels of headings, outline levels and choose table entry fields option.

When you have custom styles for headings, make sure that ‘styles’ box is checked and Heading 1, 2 and 3 are turn on with a small check on left side. Scroll down in styles box and select all custom heading styles like ‘Large heading’. If you want the outline levels to be turned on, it’s up to you. Click ‘ok’ and now you can see the Table of Contents has been added successfully including your custom heading styles.

5. Linking Sections from Table of Contents

When Word generates TOC, it links to the corresponding headings automatically. Hover the mouse on any of the headings on the table of contents. You will see a popup that says “Current document – CTRL + Click to follow the link”. When you press Ctrl key, your cursor will convert into a hand which shows it’s a link now and when you click on that link you will be rolled over to the section of that link in your document.

6. Creating Table of Contents on Word Mac Version

Microsoft has different versions of Word for Mac – Microsoft 365, 2016 and 2011. The Microsoft 365 and 2016 versions work as explained above while 2011 version works similar to earlier Word versions of 2002 or 2003 as explained below:

6.1. Document Map Pane (Navigation Pane)

On Word version for Mac, you should enable ‘Document Map Pane’ option available under the menu “View > Sidebar”. Latest version will have ‘Navigation’ option similar to Windows instead of ‘Document Map Pane’.

6.2. Insert Automatic TOC

Navigate to “Insert > Index and Tables…” menu. Go to “Table of Contents” tab and choose the available format of TOC for your document.

6.3. Custom TOC

Visit ‘Insert’ menu and chose ‘Index and Tables…’ options. Go to ‘Table of Contents’ tab and click on ‘Options’ button. In the options dialog box, it will show some options which allows you to build table of contents of your choice.

6.4. Hyperlinks

Unfortunately, the hyperlinks of table of contents will not work in Mac version of Microsoft Word.

7. Updating Table of Contents

If you want to update the table of contents, then simply ‘Right click’ on it and choose ‘Update fields’ option. You will have two options to update the TOC – update page numbers only and update entire table.

Choose to update the page numbers when you have added additional content in-between resulting the headings to move to different pages. If you have modified the document including headings then choose update entire table option to update the TOC based on new content.

7.1. Understanding Levels in Table of Contents

People get confused with the levels used in TOC. Below example explains how Word converts the headings from the content to links in the TOC.

1. Heading Level 1
2. Heading Level 1
   2.1. Heading Level 2
   2.2. Heading Level 2
     2.2.1. Heading Level 3
     2.2.2. Heading Level 3

The prefix 1, 2, 2.1, 2.2.1, etc. are the headings and sub-headings used in document. Whereas the level 1, 2, 3, etc. are the levels used in the table of contents.

8. Modifying Font and Styles of TOC

You can select the actual content in TOC and customize the font and paragraph settings. But this will be overwritten when you update the TOC. The easy way to modify the settings is to customize the themes of TOC. Word uses different style for each heading level in TOC. When you are in the options section, click on “Modify” button to open the style dialog box. Here you can choose the TOC level and customize the format and fonts as per your need.

9. Additional Options for Customizing TOC

Word treats entire TOC as a field, you can use the below points to customize the TOC further.

• Don’t use headings for titles if you don’t want it to be included in the TOC. Instead you can use title or book title styles.
• By default Word supports 9 level of headings for table of content. You can limit the levels in the options dialog box but you can’t increase the levels more than 9.
• Right click on the TOC and choose “Toggle field codes” option to see the entire TOC is converted into a field code like {TOC o f}. If you are aware, modify the parameters and customize the TOC as per your need.

Conclusion

With long document or report, it’s a good thing to add a table of contents page in them. It becomes a lot easier for the person to find the required sections quickly. As you have learned in this guide, adding a table of contents in your documents is not a hectic task. If you do any changes to TOC, always remember to update it.