Network Administration – Creating an automatic table of contents in Word saves time and increases convenience when working in this text editor. Below are detailed instructions for automatically creating a Word table of contents, please follow along.
The tutorial below uses Word 2007, you can do the same to create an automatic table of contents on Word 2016, Word 2013, Word 2010, even Word 2019, Word 365 because their methods are basically not much different. . If you are using Word 2003, you can refer to how to automatically create a table of contents in Word 2003 here.
Quickly see the steps to create a table of contents in Word
1. How to make a table of contents in Word automatically
To make it easier to imagine, creating an automatic table of contents requires 2 steps, step 1 is marking the table of contents, step 2 is displaying the table of contents. Marking the table of contents is the most important and it determines the accuracy of the table of contents, you need to do it very carefully.
Step 1: Mark the table of contents in Word
You can highlight entries in the table of contents automatically in one of two ways: using built-in Headings, or highlighting individual text entries.
Method 1: Use pre-installed Heading Styles
- Select the content you want to format as Heading, highlight it carefully so as not to add spaces or text to the table of contents.
- Click tab Home
- In the group Stylesclick Heading 1 (or choose arbitrary heading)
- If you don't see the Style you want, click the arrow to expand it Quick Styles Gallery
- If the style you want doesn't appear, click Save Selection as New Quick Style
Method 2: Mark items with Add Text of Table of Contents
- Select the content you want to create a Heading by highlighting it, highlight just enough lines to create a Heading, avoid highlighting too much
- Click tab References
- Click Add Text in group Table of Contents
- Click Level you want to apply to the selected content
Step 2: Insert table of contents automatically in Word
To create an automatic table of contents, follow these steps:
- Place the cursor in the document where you want the automatic table of contents to be placed (usually the first or last page)
- Click Tab References
- Click the button Table of Contents and choose from available table of contents templates. If you don't like it, you can click on it Insert Table of Contents and format the table of contents in your own way.
- On Word 2016, 2019, Word 365 versions you have one more option: Custom Table of Contents to edit the table of contents style.
2. Update the table of contents when there are changes
If you add or remove Headings. The table of contents can be updated by:
- Apply Headings or highlight items as mentioned above
- Click tab References in the Ribbon group
- Click Update Table, Here there are 2 options for updating the table of contents:
- Update page numbers only: Select when editing heading names or adding pages
- is to update page numbers and update all. If you do not edit the names of the Headings, but only edit the text leading to changing the page numbers, just select Update page numbers only.
3. Customize table of contents
Not satisfied with the way the table of contents is displayed through existing templates? The good news is that you have a way to modify the look of your table of contents.
Step 1: Click on your board. Select tabs Referencesselect Table of Contents and click Custom Table of Contents.
Step 2: In the pop-up window, you can make various adjustments to the table, including the number of levels to display, remove page numbers, and change the alignment. You can also open the button Options for further customization. Click OK when you're done.
Step 3: If you want to apply additional formatting, such as changing the look of text in a table, simply highlight what you want to change in the table and modify the size, color, style, etc. These options are in the tab Home.
4. Build a table of contents manually
Your document may be set up in a way that makes it difficult to automatically create a table of contents. Therefore, you can choose to insert a manual table instead.
Step 1: Click Referencesselect Table of Contents and choose Manual Table.
As its name suggests, you will be asked to make all the necessary edits, such as page numbers. It cannot be updated automatically. You will need to enter all relevant details yourself.
Step 2: To further customize the manual table of contents, click the table of contents you created. Click on the field Custom Table of Contents in the menu Table of Contents.
5. Delete the table of contents in Word
To delete the table of contents automatically, follow these steps:
- Click the References tab on the Ribbon group
- Click Table of Contents
- Click Remove Table of contents.
6. Some common errors when creating a table of contents in Word
Create a table of contents automatically but there are no dots in the table of contents?
You go to table of contents settings by: clicking tab References > Table of Contents > Custom Table of Contents:
In Leader tab > select …. > OK:
The table of contents only shows 3 levels?
You also go to the table of contents settings as above, then, in the Show levels section: select the table of contents levels you want to display, up to 9. And make sure you have marked enough headings according to the selected level. it just appeared.
The table of contents does not display all headings
Error 1: The table of contents does not contain the headings you just added to your document.
How to fix it: Update the entire table of contents. If it still doesn't show up, check to see if a style is applied to the title you're trying to include. If so, apply the appropriate style and update the table of contents again.
Error 2: The table of contents does not display all heading levels (i.e. level 1 is displayed but does not display a subheading).
How to fix it: This may be related to styles not being applied (see above) or the table of contents not being set up to pick up the correct styles you applied.
Select Table of Contents then click tab References and choose Table of Contents/Custom Table of Contents to test custom settings.
The table of contents displays too much information
Error 1: Table of contents showing the entire paragraph
How to fix it: Move to the currently displayed paragraph(s) in the table of contents. It's possible they're being styled incorrectly. This sometimes happens when you continue from previous paragraphs causing the styles to not be set correctly.
Select the paragraph and reapply the appropriate style, so that the paragraph content is not mistakenly included in the table of contents. Check previous paragraphs to see if their formatting is correct, then copy the appropriate style to another paragraph.
Error 2: Table of contents showing all paragraphs of text
How to fix it: In this case, the same style applies to both headings and paragraphs, so it is necessary to correct the style as instructed above. Otherwise, the table of contents may mistakenly include some items in the table.
Video on how to automatically create a table of contents in Word 2019
The easiest way to create an automatic table of contents is to take advantage of Heading Styles that you want to include in the table of contents. For example: There is Heading 1, Heading 2… depending on the content of the document. When you add or remove any Heading from the document, Word will update the table of contents automatically. Word also updates page numbers in the table of contents when information in the document is added or deleted. When you create an automatic table of contents, the first thing that comes to mind is to highlight the items in the document. The table of contents is formatted according to the levels of the Headings. Level 1 will include any content formatted with Heading 1 style.
If you need to create a list of tables for your document, don't sit down and type it manually, please refer to Quantrimang.com's instructions for creating a list of tables automatically in Word.
Next lesson: MS Word – Lesson 14: Creating Web Pages
