Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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 Categories for Your Table of Authorities.

Creating Categories for Your Table of Authorities

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 12, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

If you are developing a long legal document, a table of authorities can be very valuable. Word allows you to divide a table of authorities into categories. For instance, you may want case citations in a different section of the table than statute citations. Word provides seven different categories you can use: cases, statutes, rules, treatises, regulations, constitutional provisions, and other authorities. If you need more than these pre-defined categories, you can create your own categories. Word allows you to define up to 16 different categories, including the seven already defined. You can define your own categories by following these steps:

Press Shift+Alt+I to display the Mark Citation dialog box.
Click the Category button. Word displays the Edit Category dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Edit Category dialog box.

In the Category list, select one of the numbers, 8 through 16. (If you select one of the existing seven categories, you will end up replacing it with your new category.)
Edit the text in the Replace With box to reflect how you want the category to appear.
Click on Replace. The edited category name now appears in the Category list.
Click on OK.

You can now use the new category, as desired, to mark and classify citations.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13169) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Creating Categories for Your Table of Authorities.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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