Leading the way in Microsoft Office Development

Step 1 - What is a Table of Contents ?

Step 2 - Quick Table of Contents

The quickest way to create a table of contents for your document is to select (Insert > Reference > Index and Tables)("Table of Contents" tab).

ss - menu

To create a default table of contents press OK

SS - default table of contents

The default table of contents is based on the first three heading levels in your document with a dotted line tab leader and right aligned page numbers.

If you already inserted specially formatted page numbers in your document, such as page numbers that include chapter numbers, then those will automatically appear in the table of contents.

When you work in Normal or Print Layout view the entries in the table of contents act as hyperlinks to those specific parts of the document.

To move to a particular section or page, hold down Ctrl and select the relevant entry.

When Word inserts a table of contents into a document it will actually insert a TOC field.

This field will contain all the necessary information to display and format the table of contents accordingly.

It is possible to control many aspects of the table of contents that you cannot easily control thorugh the dialog box.

Step 3 - Adding Table of Contents Entries

Highlight the text you want to include in the table of contents

Press (Alt + Shift + O) to display the "Mark Table of Contents Entry" dialog box.

Entry -

Table Identifier -

Level - This is the heading level where you want the entry to appear.

Mark -

Step 4 - Things to Remember

If you are working in Web Layout view the table of contents also contains hyperlinks although the page numbers are not displayed.