The trick to creating a tablet of contents, or TOC, for your document is to use Word 2016’s Heading styles. Use Heading 1 for main heads, Heading 2 for subheads, and Heading 3 for lower-level heads and titles. Word’s Table of Contents command uses those formats to build a table of contents field, which reflects the heading names and their page numbers.
Providing that you’ve used the Heading (or equivalent) styles in your document, follow these steps to create a table of contents:
Above the TOC, you may also want to add a title — something clever, such as Table of Contents. Do not format that title as a heading unless you want it included in the table of contents.
Table Of Content Or Contents
Microsoft Word has a great built-in capability for quickly creating a Table of Contents that can be instantly updated to reflect additions and changes within your document. The Table of Contents can act as both a guide and navigation tool within the document, enabling readers to quickly find the information they need.
The easiest way to build and maintain a Table of contents is by using Styles within the document; when you insert a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word, the text marked by specified styles appears in the table automatically in the order the text appears in the document. This article will walk you through how to insert a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word 2016, 2013, and 2010 — the process does not vary greatly between Mac and Windows versions.
Word Online doesn't allow for inserting a Table of Contents, but it will preserve one in a document where it already exists.
Step 1: Apply Styles to the Document
The Home tab of Microsoft Word contains the Styles toolbox, which is key to creating a document prepared to have a Table of Contents inserted easily. Heading 1 is the highest level of a Table of Contents by default. Heading 2 is the subheading, falling into the Table of Contents with an indentation.
If you’re writing new that text you want to fall in the Table of Contents, select Heading 1 (for main topics) or Heading 2 (for subtopics). When you’re finished writing your headings, selecting Enter should default your text back to the Normal style for your body text. The Normal style does not appear in the Table of Contents.
You may be working with a document that's already written and needs a Table of Contents added, but you want to preserve the font and formatting of the document. If you’d like to customize the automatic headings to match what's already used in existing documents, you can do that in two steps. First, select the heading or subheading text, then in the Style bar, right-click the desired heading and select Update Heading 1 to match selection.
Heading 1 will now match the existing font, size, and formatting of the text you selected and this style can now be applied throughout the document. The same steps can be used to update any of the preset styles — changes to styles through this method will only be saved for the current document. Using heading styles gives your document consistent structure and formatting, not to mention the benefit of quickly adding a Table of Contents.
Step 2: Insert a Table of Contents
Matagorda county jail inmates mugshots. Inserting a Table of Contents into a document already utilizing heading styles is done by following these steps.
This process works for versions of Microsoft Word from 2003 onward on both Mac and Windows.
Your Table of Contents is now inserted into your Word document. Heading 1 styles are listed highest, with Heading 2 styles appearing as subheadings. The title of your Table of Contents is determined by default but can be updated by clicking it and inserting your own text.
Step 3: Update Your Table of Contents
The benefit of using heading styles to create an automatic Table of Contents is that it can be instantly updated to reflect changes. To update your Table of Contents, simply click it, then select Update Table.
You then have the choice to update the entire Table of Contents (text and page numbers) or to update page numbers only. When applying heading styles that are incorporated automatically, you should opt to update the entire table to account for any text edits or page changes within the document.
Step 4: Use and Customize the Table of Contents
An automatic Table of Contents has hyperlinks built in to navigate through the document quickly. To use a hyperlink, hover the mouse over the appropriate entry in the Table of Contents and Control+Click to follow the link. This is an especially helpful tool for readers of long documents.
There are also many ways to customize your Table of Contents. The font and size can be adjusted by highlighting the text as you normally would in a Word document, then using the Home tab to select a font, size, color, etc. Advanced options for customizing the Table of Contents are accessed via the Edit Field option through right-clicking on the Table of Contents text.
![]() Automatic Table Of Contents Word Mac
With the Field menu open, scroll down in the list on the left to select TOC, then click Table of Contents to open the advanced editing options.
The Table of Contents window provides various options including:
Clicking Options in the Table of Contents menu allows you to assign a TOC Level to specific headings. The default matches the heading number — for example, Heading 1 = Level 1 — but it can be altered if you aren't using every heading, or prefer the formatting of one heading over another because it didn't fit your need.
Styles enable you to insert a Table of Contents quickly with the ability to customize it to your liking and instantly update it as needed. By applying formats consistently throughout your document, you also benefit from a professional, consistent look.
To line up dots in a table of contents (TOC) in Word, you can format the document so that Word creates the TOC for you automatically, with your choice of dot styles, or you can produce the TOC manually.
The first approach, formatting the document to have Word automatically create the TOC, is ideal for long papers with multiple chapters or components. This involves dividing your chapters into segments, then inserting a table of contents in the front of your paper. The process for generating this type of TOC can be easy if you set up the titles and headers in your document properly.
However, most users won't need this type of process and are more inclined to create the TOC themselves, inserting the dots by hand using the tabs feature within Microsoft Word.
Format Your Document for a TOC
To type your own TOC, you must finish writing the final draft and thoroughly proofread your paper. You don't want to make any changes once you create a TOC, because any edits in the body of the paper afterward could make your table of contents inaccurate.
Access Tab Alignment Settings
To create your tabs within the TOC, start by adding your text for each of the sections, and then format it.
If you're not able to access the Paragraph and Tabs section by right-clicking, you can also access the Tab Alignment button by clicking on the L-shaped icon to the left of the top ruler.
At this point, you should be looking at a box titled Tabs.
Adjust the Tab Alignment Settings
The Tabs box is where you will adjust your settings to indicate where the dots will start and end on each line. You may wish to adjust the spacing settings to best fit the spacing of your individual document.
Should you find that your dots are not appearing, check to ensure that you have selected the Leader type and set the tab stop position correctly. Adjusting these settings may help.
Check for Accuracy
Once you're done, take the time to check each line item to verify that your page numbers are correct. Remember, once you create your table of contents, any changes you make within the document could potentially alter your page numbers, and since you have manually created the list, you need to manually check your document for accuracy.
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.
Newer versionsmacOSOffice 2007 - 2010
To customize your existing table of contents:
Format the text in your table of contents
To customize your existing table of contents:
Format the text in your table of contents
To customize your existing table of contents, or create a new table:
Format the text in your table of contents
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