Word styles for table of contents

After you have created a table of contents in Word, you can customize the way it appears. Customizing your table of contents applies your preferences to your existing table. Like what you see, select OK. If you’re not happy with the look, just select Cancel and all changes are forgotten. Your table of contents will still be there.

To customize your existing table of contents:

1. Go to References > Table of Contents.

2. Select Custom table of contents.

3. Use the settings to show, hide, and align page numbers, add or change the tab leader, set formats, and specify how many levels of headings to show. For more info, see Custom table of contents .

1. Go to References > Table of Contents > Custom Table of Contents.

2. Select Modify. If Modify is grayed out, change Formats to From template.

   

3. In the Styles list, click the level that you want to change and then click Modify.

   

4. In the Modify Style pane make your changes.

5. Select OK to save changes. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all the levels that you want to display in your table of contents.

To customize your existing table of contents:

1. Go to References > Table of Contents.

2. Select Custom table of contents.

3. Use the settings to show, hide, and align page numbers, add or change the tab leader, set formats, and specify how many levels of headings to show.

1. Go to References > Table of Contents > Custom Table of Contents.

2. Select Modify. If Modify is grayed out, change Formats to From template.

3. In the Styles list, click the level that you want to change and then click Modify.

4. In the Modify Style pane, make your changes.

5. Select OK to save changes. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all the levels that you want to display in your table of contents.

To customize your existing table of contents, or create a new table:

1. Go to References>Table of Contents>Insert Table of Contents.

2. If you’ve already got a table of contents, customizations will be applied. If not, this will insert a new customized table.

3. Use the settings to show, hide, and align page numbers, add or change the tab leader, set formats, and specify how many levels of headings to show. For more info, see Custom table of contents .

1. Go to References > Table of Contents > Insert Table of Contents.

2. Select Modify. If Modify is grayed out, change Formats to From template.

3. In the Styles list, click the level that you want to change and then click Modify.

4. In the Modify Style pane make your changes.

5. Select OK to save changes. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all the levels that you want to display in your table of contents.

Do you have a question about Word that we didn’t answer here?

Post a question on the Word Answers forum.

You can modify the font, paragraph, tabs, border, and other formatting of these TOC styles the same way modify any other style. Using the customizations of the Table of Contents styles, you can:

• Change the line spacing to the double space:

  

• Format long Headings to avoid overlapping page numbers:

  

• Align the second line of the long title:

  
• Customize tab leaders for different headings in the Table of Contents:

  

Sure, you can format the text of these lists like regular text in the document. However, all changes you make to the Table of Contents without changing the Table of Contents style may be lost after updating fields in the document.

To customize an existing Table of Contents style, you need to select that style and open the Modify Style dialog box. Word offers several different ways how to open that dialog box:

• Using the Table of Contents dialog box.
• Using the Styles pane.
• Using the Reveal Formatting pane.

Open the Modify Style dialog box using the Table of Contents dialog box

To modify TOC styles in the Table of Contents dialog box while creating a new Table of Contents (or editing an existing one), do the following:

   1.   Open the Table of Contents dialog box (see how to create a Table of Contents).

   2.   In the Table of Contents dialog box, on the Table of Contents tab, click the Modify… button:

   3.   In the Style dialog box:

• In the Styles list, select the style you want to modify:

  

• In the Preview field, see how the selected style looks,
• Under the Preview field, see the main options of the selected style,
• If you need to change the selected style, click the Modify… button.

Open the Modify Style dialog box using the Styles pane

You can create or modify any style in a Word document using the Style pane. To open it, on the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the dialog box launcher (or press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S):

On the Styles pane:

• Select the style you want to modify,
• Right-click and choose Modify… in the popup menu:

Open the Modify Style dialog box using the Reveal Formatting pane

The Reveal Formatting pane allows you to quickly review the font, paragraph, and section formatting used in the document content. See more about reviewing the text formatting quickly using the Reveal Formatting task pane.

   1.   Open Reveal Formatting pane by pressing Shift+F1:

• To view the formatting for the word, click on it
• To view the formatting for more than one word of the text, select the text fragment.

   2.   On the Reveal Formatting pane, in the Paragraph section, click on the PARAGRAPH STYLE link to open the Style dialog box.

   3.   In the Style dialog box:

• Select the style you want to modify,
• In the Preview field, Word shows how the selected style looks,
• Under the Preview field, Word shows the main options for the selected style,
• To make any changes, click the Modify… button:

Note: In some cases, more than one Style may be applied to the selected block of text; Word opens Hyperlink style if it can’t recognize which style it should open. You can scroll the list to choose the TOC style you need.

Modify the Table of Contents style

In the Modify Style dialog box, make the changes you need:

• In the Formatting section, make formatting changes as desired (for example, change the font, font size, color, and paragraph spacing),
• Click the Format tab:

Examples for the TOC style changes

Example 1: Change the line spacing to the double space

To change the line spacing, in the Modify Style dialog box:

• Select the Double space button,
• Make any other changes you need and click OK:

Note: You need to repeat this customization for all the TOC styles you use.

Example 2: Format long Headings using a right indentation

You can need to format the Table of Contents with long headings to avoid overlapping page numbers:

To format a long Heading that spans more than one line in the Table of Contents so that it doesn’t overlap the page numbers, do the following:

   1.   In the Modify Style dialog box, click the Format… button, then select Paragraph…

   2.   In the Paragraph dialog box, in the Indentation section, in the Right field, type or select the value you need. E.g., 0.2″:

   3.   Apply the changes for the style:

Note: If you have several long Headings with different TOC styles, you need to repeat this customization for all of them.

Example 3: Align the second line of the long title using a hanging indent

You can need to format the Table of Contents with the long headings for second and following lines:

To format a long Heading that spans more than one line in the Table of Contents so that it doesn’t overlap the page numbers, do the following:

   1.   In the Modify Style dialog box, click the Format… button, then select Paragraph…

   2.   In the Paragraph dialog box, in the Indentation section:

• In the Special dropdown list, select Hanging,
• In the By field, type or select the value you need. E.g., 0.8″:

   3.   Apply the changes for the style:

Note: If you have several long Headings with different TOC styles, you need to repeat this customization for all of them.

Example 4: Customize tab leaders for different headings in the Table of Contents

To customize the tab leaders for some TOC style, do the following:

   1.   In the Modify Style dialog box, click the Format… button, then select Tab…

   2.   In the Tab dialog box:

• In the Tab stop position field, type the value you want to position page numbers (usually, page width minus a minimal value such as 0.01″),
• In the Alignment section, select the Right option,
• In the Leader section, select the tab leader you prefer:

  

• Click the Set button to apply the Tab stop position.

   3.   Apply the changes to the style:

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You’ve built a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word using the Styles feature to mark the TOC entries or by marking them manually. And just when you’re about to pat yourself on the back for having an automatic Table of Contents in your document, you notice something’s a little … off. Maybe the font’s not quite right. Perhaps the font’s okay but the spacing’s not. Or the indentation. It could be you want/don’t want the dot leaders running up to the page numbers.

Suffice it to say you just want to alter the format of it. But how?

More…

First, let’s take a look at a sample generated Table of Contents:

Table of Contents: fix = replace

… which will take us to the Style dialog box:

The secret to controlling TOC formatting: Styles

This dialog box lists all of the Styles associated with Table of Contents entries. Since the Styles control the formatting of the entries in the Table of Contents, we need to modify the Styles to correct the formatting. The first entry that has incorrect formatting is TOC 2 (the second-level entries). Click on that (click #1 above) to see the current settings in the Preview window, then click on Modify (click #2).

Use Print Preview as a guide

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.

Insert, Format and Update a Table of Contents or TOC in Microsoft Word (The Easy Way)

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated April 14, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)

You can create a table of contents quickly in Word using built-in heading styles. Although you can insert a table of contents (TOC) using different strategies in Word documents, it’s easiest to use Heading 1, Heading 2 and so on to format headings and then generate your table of contents. You can then change the formatting and update the TOC when your document changes.

Because a table of contents is a Word field, you should not type over it as any typing will be removed when you update the TOC.

There are 4 steps for creating a table of contents in Word using heading styles:

1. Prepare the document by applying built-in heading styles such as Heading 1, Heading 2 and so on
2. Create or insert the table of contents
3. Format the table of contents
4. Update the table of contents

Both custom and automatic table of contents can be updated when changes are made to the document. An automatic table of contents is inserted in a content control and some users may have difficulty working with, or understanding, content controls (which act as containers for specific content). The Manual Table that appears in the Insert Table of Contents drop-down menu is an option that requires the user to type entries and is not an efficient way to create a table of contents in Word (and should rarely be used).

Recommended article: 14 Timesaving Microsoft Word Shortcuts to Quickly Select Text

Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person classroom Word courses >

Step 1: Prepare the document by applying built-in heading styles

In order to easily insert a table of contents in Word, you’ll need to apply heading styles to titles and subheadings in your document first.

To apply a built-in heading style to a title or subheading:

1. Click in the title or subheading to which you wish to apply a built-in heading style. Each title or subheading is a paragraph and should be followed by a hard return (you pressed Enter or Return).
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon and in the Styles group, click a heading style (such as Heading 1). You can click the down arrow on the bottom right of the Styles Gallery to display more styles.

Below is the Styles Gallery in the Home tab in the Ribbon in Word:

It’s common to have one or two levels of headings (Heading 1 and Heading 2), but you can apply multiple heading levels. By default, Word will typically display the next heading level if a previous level has been used in the document.

You can also click in a title or subheading and press Ctrl + Alt + 1 to apply Heading 1, Ctrl + Alt + 2 to apply Heading 2 and so on.

Step 2: Create or insert the table of contents

Once you have applied built-in heading styles, you can easily create a custom table of contents or TOC.

To create or insert a table of contents:

1. Click in the document where you want to insert or create a table of contents (typically at the beginning of the document).
2. Type «Contents» or «Table of Contents» and press Enter. Format the text, but do not use built-in heading styles.
3. Click below the title where you want to insert the table of contents.
4. Click the References tab in the Ribbon and click Table of Contents in the Table of Contents group. A drop-down menu appears.
5. Select Custom Table of Contents. A custom table of contents will not appear in a content control. A dialog box appears.
6. Enter the number of levels to display in the table of contents beside Show levels (such as 2).
7. Select or check Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers if you want to create active hyperlinks or links if you save the document as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. This will enable users to click the table of contents in the PDF to jump to specific locations in the file.
8. Ensure Show page numbers is selected if you want page numbers to appear in the table of contents. If you select Show page numbers, the page numbers are typically right aligned by default. If necessary, select a tab leader from the Tab leader drop-down menu to change the character that leads up to the page numbers in the table of contents.
9. Select an option from the Formats drop-down menu if necessary. It’s best to select From template if you want to modify the formatting of the table of contents.
10. Click OK. A table of contents appears in the document. This is a Word field so if you click in it, it will normally appear in grey. Do not type manual entries in the table of contents.

The Table of Contents dialog box appears as follows:

Step 3: Format the table of contents

You can format a table of contents in many ways using the Table of Contents dialog box:

1. Click in the table of contents.
2. Click the References tab in the Ribbon and click Table of Contents in the Table of Contents group. A drop-down menu appears.
3. Select Custom Table of Contents. A dialog box appears.
4. Click Modify. Note: you will not be able to select Modify if you have selected any option other than From Template from the Formats drop-down menu. A dialog box appears with TOC styles.
5. Click a TOC style. For example, click TOC 1 if you want to format the first level items in the table of contents.
6. Click Modify. The Modify Style dialog box appears.
7. Select the desired options (such as font size, bold, etc.). You can also select Format and choose other options from the drop-down menu. It’s a good idea to turn off Automatically update so if a user selects and formats paragraphs manually in a table of contents, the table of contents does not update with the changes. It’s also usually best to select Only in this document so that the formatting changes apply only to the current document, not future documents based on the template (typically the Normal template).
8. Click OK.
9. Repeat for other TOC levels.
10. Continue clicking OK until you return to the document. A dialog box appears asking if you want to replace the table of contents.
11. Click OK.

You can modify an automatic table of contents in the same way. Click in the automatic table of contents and follow steps 2-9.

Below is the Style dialog box that appears when you click Modify:

If you selected 2 heading levels to include in your table of contents, you may want to modify TOC 1 and TOC 2.

When you click a TOC style and then click Modify, the following Modify Style dialog box appears:

You can select options under Formatting or click Format on the bottom left and select other options such as Font or Paragraph.

The following table of contents example includes 2 heading levels (TOC 1 and TOC 2):

Step 4: Update the table of contents

After you edit your document, you can update the table of contents at any time.

To update a table of contents:

1. Click in the table of contents.
2. Right-click and select Update Field from the drop-down menu or press F9. You can also click the References tab and then click Update Table in the Table of Contents group. A dialog box appears.
3. Click Update page numbers only or Update entire table (recommended).
4. Click OK.

Navigate to table of contents entries

If you want to quickly jump to a table of contents entry, Ctrl-click it in the table of contents.

Remove a table of contents

You can remove a table of contents if it’s no longer required.

To remove a table of contents:

1. Click in the table of contents.
2. Click the References tab in the Ribbon and click Table of Contents in the Table of Contents group. A drop-down menu appears.
3. Select Remove Table of Contents.

You can also select the entire table of contents by dragging over it and then pressing Delete.

Table of contents can be generated easily from built-in heading styles so it’s best to use the built-in styles when formatting your Word documents rather than creating new styles for headings.

This article was first published on February 8, 2020 and has been updated for clarity and content.

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It’s tricky to make a good-looking and functional table of contents in Microsoft Word.

You might often encounter documents that have messy tables of contents along with navigation panes with links to missing headings, non harmonized styles, and badly structured sections.

This wouldn’t be a big problem for smaller documents, but with hundreds of pages in a file it ruins the user experience and makes it painful to navigate from one section to another. Not to mention that non-harmonized styles throughout the file can mess with the overall hierarchy of titles.

So how can you build a customizable and structured table of contents with pretty personalized titles and numbering? You’ll learn how in this guide.

How to Build a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word

How to Define Numbering Styles in Word

What we’re going to do first is define a new list style to create a personalized numbering for our titles. Go to the Home tab > Paragraph section and click the multilevel list button. Choose Define New List Style.

This will open the Define New List Style window which we will use to customize the numbering style and format of our titles.

Name your style however you want (here MyNewListStyle), then click the Format button > Numbering… This will open the Modify Multilevel list window.

We will only define the numbering («1)»,»a)») and no format or style will be applied at this level. We’ll define and apply font styles and formats later on.

Let’s take the following numbering for our titles «1.»,»1.1″,»1.1.1″,»2.»,»2.1″,»2.2″ and so on.

First replace the parenthesis character with a dot character in the Enter formatting for number field. This will change the level 1 numbering format to «1.».

Then we’ll define the second level of numbering by clicking the number 2 in the Click level to modify list.

Change the Number style for this level by clicking the associated dropdown menu then select 1,2,3, … You should get this result:

Erase the parenthesis character in the Enter formatting for number field and place a dot before the «1». You should have «.1».

Now how do I get the numbering style 1.1 at level 2? Pretty simple! Place your mouse before the «.1» in the Enter formatting for number field. Then open the Include level number from dropdown menu and select Level 1.

This will insert the numbering for level 1 before your numbering for level 2. You should get this result:

Inserting numbers manually in this field will give you static numbers which won’t be linked to any dynamic numbering in your document. These numbers won’t be highlighted in grey in the Enter formatting for number field.

Let’s repeat the same steps for level 3. Select level 3 in the Click level to modify list. Select the right Number style for this level in the dropdown menu. Remove unwanted characters and add a dot before the «1».

Then place your mouse before the «.1» in the Enter formatting for number field and open the Include level number from dropdown menu and select level 2. Add a dot before the level 2 «1» in the Enter formatting for number field. Then open Include level number from and select level 1. You should get this result:

You can modify the space character following the number by clicking More >> then Follow number with and select what you want. Here I am going to use Tab character for all my levels.

Click the OK button and you’re all set for the numbering part! You won’t have to do these steps again as the styles you define can be available from one Word document to another. We’ll talk more about that later.

Your list style should be available by clicking the Multilevel list button in the Paragraph section of the Home tab.

We will now define our title styles.

How to Define Title Styles in Word

In the Home tab and under the Style section, click the down arrow next to the different styles available.

Then click Create a Style.

Give your new style a name. It’s good practice to include the level number where you’re going to apply this title so it’s easier to follow your title hierarchy. I am going to name mine NewStyle1 for level 1. Then click Modify.

If you’ve clicked OK too fast don’t worry – you can find your style and modify at anytime in the style section. You can edit it by right clicking on it and clicking Modify…

We are going to apply formatting to our title style.

Start by opening the Style based on dropdown menu and select Heading 1 for level 1. This is an important step for Word to understand the title hierarchy level. You’ll apply this step to each level (Heading 2 for your level 2 style, Heading 3 for your level 3 style…).

Then open the Style for following paragraph and select Normal. This will prevent any formatting from applying automatically to the following lines of text you type.

Open the Format menu and open the Numbering… menu. Make sure that None is selected then click OK. This will prevent any conflict between the numbering we defined earlier.

You can then select any font formatting that you want. This is what I picked:

Let’s create a style for level 2 and 3 by following the same steps. Be sure to have the numbering set to None each time. This is what I have for level 2:

And level 3:

We are now going to link our title styles with our numbering style.

Go to the Home tab, Paragraph section, Mutlilevel list. Then right click on the Numbering list style we created in the first part and click Modify.

Open the Numbering window by clicking Format. Select the level 1 and in the Link level to style dropdown menu select the level 1 style you created for your level 1 title. You should get this:

Repeat these steps for level 2 and 3.

Then click OK.

How to Apply Your New Title Styles

Now let’s try to apply our new title styles. Type in Title 1 in your document without any formatting applied.

If you already have a format applied you can remove it by clicking in the paragraph and applying the Normal style in the Styles section. This is useful to remove any unwanted formatting or styles you may find.

Now click in the Title 1 text and click on your newly created style for level 1. This will apply your level 1 style to the whole paragraph.

If you go to the View tab you can check the Navigation pane and see that «1. Title 1» just appeared as a selectable heading on the left Navigation panel, allowing you to go to it quickly.

Let’s try our other titles styles as well. Type in the text without formatting, place your mouse in the relevant paragraph, and then click on your newly created styles to apply them. You should get something like this:

As you can see on the left panel, all my titles are appearing in a structured way with harmonized numbering. You can collapse are expand these to navigate faster. There is also a search engine available on top of this panel.

You can now insert a structured table of contents by going to the References tab > Table of Contents > Automatic table 1. You should now have something like this:

You can customize this table of contents to only display titles down to a certain level by clicking Table of Contents > Custom table of Contents > decrease the Show levels number > OK.

How to Preserve Your Styles in Word

At the moment, these title styles are only available in this Word file. We are going to make them available every time we open Word as well as make them transferable to other people.

Open the Developer tab in Word. If you can’t see it displayed click File > Options > Customize Ribbon > Check Developer in the right panel > OK.

Once you’re in the Developer tab go to Document Template > Organizer.

In the left panel (in Document1 for me) you can see the styles available in this file. In the right panel are the styles available in the Normal.dotm which allows you to store styles that will be available every time you open Word.

Let’s select all our newly created styles then click Copy->. You should get something like this:

Now if you open another file your styles will be directly available in the styles section. This can be useful if you want to transfer styles among your group and harmonize the structure and format of your files.

That’s it!

Voilà! You are now able to build a structured Word document with customizable titles styles and a reliable navigation panel.

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