Do a contents page in word

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Today we’re going to look at how to create a contents page or contents list in Word. I am breaking this series up into small pieces, so we have already learned about setting up headings and then numbering them.

You will use this to save yourself time and ensure consistency when you’re setting up a large document and you want it to have a contents page. You can do it manually, but it is FAR easier to do it this way.

First, have a look at the two headings articles to make sure you understand how to assign headings and how to number them (if you want to).

Now, for the purposes of making a more interesting contents page, I’ve popped each heading onto a separate page (and we all know how to do that, don’t we!)

So the text is all set up, with headings that are also numbered, and each heading is on a separate page. Now we’re going to put our cursor at the beginning of the document, and make sure we’re in the References tab.

You can see the Table of Contents button highlighted – click on that and have a look at the box that comes up:

Here we have lots of different styles of contents page to choose between. Either double click on the one you want – I clicked on the first one – or click once to highlight it and then Insert Table of Contents. And look what appears! Magic!

You can see lots of lovely headings and their numbers, all laid out nice and clearly (imagine if this was a PhD or another long document with lots of sub-headings.

But what happens if we need to change something in the text? Look – there’s a problem with the document here …

I can see that I should have typed “How Much it Costs” for section 3, and it’s on page 8 along with Section 2, when it should be on page 9. Oh no!

So let’s go to page 8, move the heading onto page 9 and amend the heading itself:

Great – so now the text is sorted out and the heading is on page 9, where it should be. How do we update the Table of Contents to reflect this change?

Go back to the Table of Contents and highlight it (it all comes up in blue if you click on one bit of it). Left click and you should find it puts everything in grey and gives you a little tab at the top like this.

You can use this to change all sorts of attributes on the contents page, or you can just click on Update Field from here or left click when you have the contents list in blue in the last step, and you get this choice:

I always choose Update entire table, just in case. And with one click, it’s updated the Contents list to match the document.

So, no more fiddling around doing a contents page by hand. As long as you set up your headers, you can insert and update your Contents page however you want and whenever you want – so much easier!

This is why, if you use my proofreading services, I will put a note on your contents page reminding you to update it at the last minute, to take into account any changes we might have made to your pagination or heading numberings. Update the Contents page at the very last stage, and it’ll be completely accurate and up to date.

If you have enjoyed this post and found it useful, please click on the “share” buttons below or tell your friends and colleagues about it! Thank you!

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …

When you’re creating or editing a long document, you’ll
probably have to create a table of contents. That might sound like a chore, but
fortunately, you can do it in just a few clicks. Then, if you change the document, Word can update the table of content instantly. 

Best of all, Word includes hyperlinks to the various sections in your table of contents, so it isn’t just a visual aid for
printed documents, but it’s also perfect to make easy-to-browse online documents and PDFs with.

Creating the table of contents in Word itself is simple, but the tricky part is getting it to work the way you want. In this tutorial, I’ll show you everything you need to make a simple, auto-generated table of contents, and then get it to look the way you want in every version of Microsoft Word.

How to Make a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word (Screencast)

You can follow along using your own document, or if you prefer, download the zip file included for this tutorial. It contains a document called The Age of Einstein.docx, which is a public domain physics textbook (credit to the author, Professor Frank W.K. Firk).

Watch the video screencast above or follow the written tutorial instructions below for more detail on how to make a table of contents in Word.

Creating Your Table of Contents in Word

There are a few ways of creating a table of contents in Word, but only two that you’ll
ever use

• Create them automatically from built-in styles
• Create them from your custom styles

These methods work mostly the same in Windows and Mac versions of Microsoft Word.

Using MS Word built-in styles is the fastest and most common
technique, and using custom styles takes only a little more work. Sometimes,
you’ll want to use both techniques in the same document. Once you have a table of contents (TOC) in
a document, you can format it with its own styles. You don’t want to format the
TOC like regular text, because the formatting can easily get wiped out.

How the Textbook is Organized

Before doing anything to the document, let’s see how it’s
organized. Page 1 is the title, page 2 is blank and will hold the table of contents, page 3
is the preface, and after that comes the text. As you scroll down, notice that headings
and subheadings are formatted.

The best way to see the structure of the document is with
the Navigation Pane. (In some versions of Word for Mac, it may be called the Document Map Pane.)

In Windows, go to the View
tab, then click the check box to enable the Navigation Pane.

On the Mac, click the Sidebar option to show the drop-down menu. Click the arrow next to the option and click Navigation. (On older versions of the Mac software, the option is called Document Map Pane.)

On your Mac or PC, go back to the Home
tab if you’re not already there. Keep your eye on the Styles box on the ribbon,
and click the items in the pane to navigate through the book. 

Notice that the
items with whole numbers – like 2.
Understanding the Physical Universe – are formatted as Heading 1, and items
with decimals – like 2.1 Reality and Pure
Thought – are formatted as Heading 2. There are also a few decimal items –
like 4.5 Space Travel – that are
formatted as Heading 3.

Tip: when
creating a document, the shortcuts for applying the Heading 1, 2 and 3 styles
are Ctrl-Alt-1, Ctrl-Alt-2, and Ctrl-Alt-3
(and Command-Opt-1, Command-Opt -2, and Command-Opt-3 on the Mac).

Generating a Table of Contents Using Built-In Header Styles in Word

Word can now turn those Heading styles into table of contents
entries. Click at the top of page 2. (Tip: in Windows, press Ctrl-G,
type 2, then press Enter. On the Mac, press Command-Opt-G, type 2, then press Return.)

In Windows, go to the References
tab on the ribbon, click the Table of
Contents button on the left, then choose one of the two built-in tables
from the list. Note that the thumbnails show that Headings 1, 2 and 3 will be
included.

It’s almost the same on the Mac. Go to the Insert menu, choose Index and Tables, then pick one of the
formats on the left and click OK.
This dialog box also shows that Headings 1-3 will be included.

As soon as you choose one, the table of contents gets inserted starting on
page 2, and Word automatically inserts a couple of more pages, so it all fits. In Windows, you can Ctrl-click one of the items, and it will hyperlink to the item in the document.

This works great, but there’s one problem. Before the
Introduction, there is a Preface that
should be included in the table of contents. And just before Appendix A1 is the heading for
the Appendix, and that should also be
included. But they weren’t, because they’re both formatted with a custom style
called Large heading, and custom
styles don’t get included in the default table of contents. The second method of creating table of contents in Word will fix that.

Creating a Table of Contents From Custom Styles in Word

Word can include any styles in a table of contents. We just
have to tell it which ones to choose. And we can update the table, rather than having
to delete it and start over.

In Windows, go back to the References tab, click the Table
of Contents button, then near the bottom of the menu, choose Custom Table of Contents. Click the Options button near the bottom of the dialog box to display the Table of Contents Options dialog box.

On the Mac, go to back to the Insert menu and choose Index
and Tables. In the Table of Contents section, click the Options button.

On the Mac or PC the Table of Contents Options dialog box shows that the Heading 1 style will have TOC level 1,
the Heading 2 style will have TOC level 2, and the Heading 3 style will have
TOC level 3.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list (on the Mac, you’ll use the down slider). Then, in the box for Large heading, type a 1 to make it level 1. Table of Content levels can
come from more than one style.

Click OK in the
Table of Contents Options dialog, then OK again in the Table of Contents dialog box. When Word displays a message asking if you want to replace the
table, choose Yes. The Preface and Appendix are now both included in the table
of contents.

Manually Updating the Table of Contents in Word

There are other times when you’ll want to update the table
manually. This is handy when you change the text of one of the headings and
want the change reflected in the table of contents.

Scroll down to the page with the preface. At the top of the page replace
PREFACE with FORWARD. Make sure it still uses the Large heading style.

Go back to the top of the table of contents and click in it. Note that it
has a gray background; that means it’s a field, and fields can usually be
updated. 

Click the Update Table
button either on the TOC itself (that button doesn’t always appear) or on the References tab, and the first entry changes to FORWARD. (On the Mac, right-click the table and choose Update Field from the pop-up menu. Choose the Update entire table option and click OK.)

Now that the table of contents displays the correct text, we
can apply nicer formatting though.

How to Modify Table of Contents Styles in Word

Each heading level of the table of contents has its own
style that’s automatically applied. All we have to do is change the formatting
of the styles to change the table’s appearance, here’s how:

1. In Windows, in the References tab of the ribbon, click again on the Table of Contents button and choose Custom Table of Contents, near the
   bottom. In the Table of Contents dialog box, click Modify.
2. On the Mac, click Insert > Index
   and Tables. On the left side, choose From Template, then
   click Modify. Everything else works
   the same way as in Windows.
3. In the Table of Contents dialog box, click Modify, and another dialog box appears,
   showing style names and formatting for the TOC heading levels. Select TOC
   1.
4. Click the Modify
   button just below it, and the Style dialog  box appears. (On the Mac, it’s called the Properties dialog box.)

Format the style with Arial or Helvetica, 12 points, bold.
Then click OK.

• Repeat for the TOC 2 style, and set it to Arial
  or Helvetica, 12 points, normal.
• Repeat for the TOC 3 style, and set it to Arial
  or Helvetica, 11 points, normal.

The table of contents should now look like this:

Conclusion

When you have a long document, you don’t have to fear
creating a table of contents. Whether you’re using Windows or a Mac, you can
insert one in just a few clicks, then use the same dialog box to change the
formatting.

As you learned in this table of contents tutorial, remember not to apply formatting directly to the table, because it
can get wiped out if you replace it. If you make any changes to the Word document itself, remember to click the top of the TOC and update it. Leave a comment below if you have any trouble making or tweaking your table of contents.

To learn more about working with Microsoft Word, study the following tutorials:

Editorial Note: This post was
originally published in 2014. It has been comprehensively revised to make it
current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special assistance from Laura Spencer.

Did you find this post useful?

Bob Flisser has authored many videos and books about Microsoft and Adobe products, and has been a computer trainer since the 1980s. He is also a web and multimedia developer. Bob is a graduate of The George Washington University with a degree in financial economics.

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Word can generate a table of contents for your document based on the document’s heading styles. For example, paragraphs formatted with the Heading 1 style would be main headings in the table of contents, paragraphs formatted with the Heading 2 style would be subheadings, and so on.

Insert a Table of Contents

A table of contents can take up a lot of space. The best place for a table of contents is a blank page, near the beginning of a document.

1. Click in the document where you want to insert a Table of Contents.
2. Click the References tab on the ribbon.
3. Click the Table of Contents button.

A gallery of built-in styles appears. You can select one of these, browse for more tables of contents on Office.com, or create a custom table of contents style.

4. Select a table of contents style.

   

The table of contents is inserted, listing all the headings in the document in outline order, as well as the page number that each heading appears on.

Customize a Table of Contents

If one of the built-in templates isn’t quite what you’re looking for, you can customize a table of contents.

1. Click anywhere in the table of contents.
2. Click the Table of Contents button.
3. Select Custom Table of Contents.

   

A dialog box opens, with options to customize the appearance and behavior of the table of contents.

You have the option to toggle whether page numbers appear and whether those page numbers are right-aligned, as well as specify what sort of tab leader appears between the heading text and the page number.

You can also select whether the table of contents uses the current document’s theme, or select another theme from the Formats list.

Finally, you can adjust how many outline levels deep the table of contents should go.

4. Customize the appearance of the table of contents.

As you adjust the table of contents options, the previews update to show you how the table of contents will appear.

5. Click OK.

   

If you’re customizing an existing table of contents, you’ll need to confirm the changes that you’ve made.

6. Click OK.

   

The table of contents is replaced by the table that you customized.

Update a Table of Contents

If the content of the document changes, you will need to update the table of contents to include new or changed information.

1. Click inside the table of contents.

When the table of contents is selected, tabs will appear above it with options to change or update the table.

2. Click Update Table button.

   

A dialog box will open, asking how you want to update the table.

3. Select what you want to update:
• Update page numbers only: This option will update page numbers, but not headings. Use this option if you’ve added text to sections, but haven’t added new headings or reordered existing ones.
• Update entire table: This option will update both headings and page numbers. Use this option if you’ve added new headings or reordered existing ones.
4. Click OK

   

The table of contents is updated to reflect the changes in the document.

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How to create a table of contents in Word

Imagine you’re working with a really long document in Microsoft Word, like an academic paper or a big report. Depending on the project, it might be dozens or even hundreds of pages long! When a document is this large, it can be difficult to remember which page has what information. Fortunately, Word allows you to insert a table of contents, making it easy to organize and navigate your document.

A table of contents is just like the list of chapters at the beginning of a book. It lists each section in the document and the page number where that section begins. A really basic table of contents might look like this:

You could create a table of contents manually—typing the section names and page numbers—but it would take a lot of work. And if you ever decide to rearrange your sections or add more information, you’ll have to update everything all over again. However, with the right formatting, Word can create and update a table of contents automatically.

Step 1: Apply heading styles

If you’ve already read our Applying and Modifying Styles lesson, you know they’re an easy way to add professional text formatting to different parts of your document. Styles also serve another important purpose: adding a hidden layer of organization and structure to your document.

If you apply a heading style, you’re telling Word that you’ve started a new part of your document. When you insert the table of contents, it will create a section for each heading. In the table of contents above, each chapter uses a heading style, so there are four sections.

To apply a heading style, select the text you want to format, then choose the desired heading in the Styles group on the Home tab.

Step 2: Insert the table of contents

Now for the easy part! Once you’ve applied heading styles, you can insert your table of contents in just a few clicks. Navigate to the References tab on the Ribbon, then click the Table of Contents command. Select a built-in table from the menu that appears, and the table of contents will appear in your document.

As you can see in the image below, the table of contents uses the heading styles in your document to determine where each section begins. Sections that begin with a Heading 2 or Heading 3 style will be nested within a Heading 1 style, much like a multilevel list.

A table of contents also creates 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.

Step 3: Update as needed

If you edit or add to your document, it’s easy to update the table of contents. Just select the table of contents, click Update Table, and choose Update Entire Table in the dialog box that appears. The table of contents will then update to reflect any changes.

No matter how large your document may be, you can see there’s nothing complicated about creating a table of contents. If you want even more control over how your table of contents appears, check out this tutorial from Microsoft on Taking a Table of Contents to the Next Level.

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