Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Creating a Table of Contents from Heading Levels.
If you are writing a long document or a book, you may want to create a Table of Contents (TOC) for your document. The easiest way to create a TOC is to use heading levels, as defined by the Word styles. To do this, follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Table of Contents tab of the Table of Contents dialog box.
Note, again, that this process creates a TOC based on heading levels within your document. This means that your document must use heading styles throughout it. (Heading styles are named "Heading 1," "Heading 2," etc.) If you apply these as you are creating your document—or if you go back and apply the styles later—then creating the TOC is a snap, as described above.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5950) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Creating a Table of Contents from Heading Levels.
The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!
Adding multiple tables of contents is a must for some types of document design. Here's a great overview of how you can ...
Discover MoreWord makes it easy to create a Table of Contents. If you want column headings in that table, getting them takes a bit of ...
Discover MoreGenerating a table of contents is easy in Word. Changing how that table of contents looks is also easy, provided you ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2019-11-01 09:33:10
Ken Endacott
Rich
It looks like Heading 2 is applied as a character style to "Chapt 2" and not as a paragraph style.
Select the whole paragraph and click CTRL + SPACE to remove character formatting.
2019-10-31 14:29:56
Rich
I've got a weird problem w/ my TOC. The document is quite large and it's broken into sub documents and the Master doc contains the TOC. Each subdoc is a chapter where the first page is formatted to start on page 1 and to use the "include chapter no." option with Heading 2 style selected (I know, it's a weird pagination system). For the most part this is working fine. The problem is that 2 chapters are showing in the TOC as starting on page 1 of the Heading 2 from the PREVIOUS chapter, even though the page footer prints the appropriate page no.
IOW, it looks like this
TOC:
Chapt 2.......................3.17-1
2.1 some stuff.............2.1-1
2.2 other things..........2.2-2
Chapter 2
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce eleifend egestas sem, eget aliquet tortor molestie ac. Nulla varius tincidunt erat. Sed id mauris eget neque vehicula viverra. Ut at ante non turpis molestie tincidunt semper in felis. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Sed rutrum quam nec auctor venenatis. Donec nec mi mauris. Maecenas eleifend mauris in sapien venenatis ullamcorper id non risus. Proin tempor massa eu odio imperdiet, at vulputate felis facilisis. Sed mattis vestibulum nibh, id ullamcorper nisi lobortis id.
2.1 some stuff
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce eleifend egestas sem, eget aliquet tortor molestie ac. Nulla varius tincidunt erat. Sed id mauris eget neque vehicula viverra. Ut at ante non turpis molestie tincidunt semper in felis. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Sed rutrum quam nec auctor venenatis. Donec nec mi mauris. Maecenas eleifend mauris in sapien venenatis ullamcorper id non risus. Proin tempor massa eu odio imperdiet, at vulputate felis facilisis. Sed mattis vestibulum nibh, id ullamcorper nisi lobortis id.
page 2.1-1
----------------------next page
2.2 other things
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce eleifend egestas sem, eget aliquet tortor molestie ac. Nulla varius tincidunt erat. Sed id mauris eget neque vehicula viverra. Ut at ante non turpis molestie tincidunt semper in felis. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Sed rutrum quam nec auctor venenatis. Donec nec mi mauris. Maecenas eleifend mauris in sapien venenatis ullamcorper id non risus. Proin tempor massa eu odio imperdiet, at vulputate felis facilisis. Sed mattis vestibulum nibh, id ullamcorper nisi lobortis id.
page 2.2-2
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx END OF EXAMPLE
I have section breaks in place. Chap 3 appears as it should in the TOC, but Chap 4 presents like Chap 2. I have no idea what's going on
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2021 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
Comments