Creating a Table of Contents (TOC) in Word
This Tech Tip was provided by Gayle Fink, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness, Bowie State University.
This past winter break, I was editing an accreditation report for one of our academic departments. They had set up the table of contents manually, requiring constant double-checking as we were editing. A little bit of time to automate the table of contents saved me many tedious moments in the long run. I hope you find this tip helpful in your report writing.
Generating a TOC is a two-step process: 1) identify the text for the TOC by applying heading styles, and 2) direct Word to create the TOC. Detailed steps are below:
Step 1 – Applying the Styles
In your document, click on the first major heading you want to appear in the TOC and select the Heading 1 style by accessing the Home tab and then the Styles group. Then click the Heading 1 thumbnail to apply (Word 2007 and Word 2010).
In the same way, apply the Heading 1 style to other major headings in your document. Apply the Heading 2 style to sub-headings, Heading 3 style to sub-sub-headings, etc.
Step 2 – Generating the TOC
Follow the steps below to generate the TOC in Word 2007 and Word 2010:
Choose References > Table of Contents
Choose one of the following items on the menu:
One of two built-in “automatic” tables of contents: Automatic Table 1 and Automatic Table 2. If you click the thumbnail for either of these, your TOC will be inserted into a content control, and Word will add a heading.
Or
Right-click on Automatic Table 1 or 2 and select where you would like the TOC inserted -- you now have a table of contents!
You can use the content control to manage your TOC. Use the update function at the end of your editing, which makes life a lot easier.
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