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About this lesson

Learn to create an automated Table of Contents.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the Word document used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Table of Contents
60 KB

Quick reference

Table of Contents

Learn to create an automated Table of Contents.

When to use

A Table of Contents (TOC) is commonly used in large manuals, lengthy reports, or any time a page reference to topics is desired. It is good practice to create the TOC on its own page rather than embed it within text on a page.

Instructions

Rule #1: The TOC will link to Heading Styles.

Rule #2: Apply Heading Styles before creating the TOC.

 

Be aware of the 4 ribbons involved in making the TOC project run smoothly:

 

Apply the Heading Styles:
  • Select the “Topic text” to work with.
  • Click the Home ribbon and select Heading 1 in the Styles group.
  • Continue in that same fashion to apply Heading 1 to all the main topics.
  • Apply Heading 2 on the “Sub Topic text”; there are two instances of sub topics.

Apply Page Numbers:

  • Insert Ribbon, Page Number, Bottom of Page, and choose any of the options you like.

Insert a Page Break after the Table of Contents title on page 1:

  • Click at the end of the “Table of Contents” title (This places the insertion point where the page break will occur.)
  • Press Ctrl + Enter, or click Page Layout, Breaks, “Page”.

Create the Table of Contents on Page 1:

  • Move your insertion point below the Table of Contents title on page 1.
  • Click the References ribbon.
  • Click Table of Contents.
  • Choose the top Automatic Table 1.

Check for accuracy by using the Navigation Pane options or pressing Ctrl + Click on any TOC entry to make sure it sends your insertion point to the matching location within the document.

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  • 00:05 A Table Of Contents, also known as a TOC, is basically any time you have a large
  • 00:09 manual or a lengthy report, or any time page references are necessary.
  • 00:13 You'll build a list of your topics with the page numbers called the Table of
  • 00:17 Contents, and there's rules to these.
  • 00:20 So the Rule 1 is basically a table of contents is usually on its own page.
  • 00:25 Occasionally, it can be on the second part
  • 00:27 of a cover page if it's a very short handout.
  • 00:30 Rule number 2, table of contents link to heading styles.
  • 00:33 So it's really important to apply heading styles to each line that you want to show
  • 00:37 up on your table of contents.
  • 00:39 Well, that means there's a process to this.
  • 00:41 So the main process is applying the heading styles throughout the document.
  • 00:46 Also activate the Navigation Pane, and mine is already open right over here, but
  • 00:49 let me close it and reopen it.
  • 00:51 It's on the View ribbon, Navigation Pane,
  • 00:53 it would be great to have that open why you're doing this.
  • 00:56 Inserting page numbers, to apply page numbers that is on the insert ribbon,
  • 01:01 where we on the right hand side it's just page number.
  • 01:04 I'm gonna apply mine to the bottom of the page and
  • 01:07 I'm gonna choose the right hand side.
  • 01:09 Now, when I activate that it actually opens up the footer and
  • 01:12 shows me my page number there.
  • 01:14 So to get out of my footer, I'm simply going to double-click back into the text
  • 01:17 of the document, double-click, there we go.
  • 01:19 The document is now lit up, and the page number is shaded.
  • 01:23 So I know that I'm back into my main document and page numbers are applied.
  • 01:27 Okay, and then the References Ribbon, which is where?
  • 01:31 On the References Ribbon Table of Contents.
  • 01:33 But I don't wanna get ahead of myself, okay?
  • 01:35 Here's the steps.
  • 01:36 First of all, select each heading and apply a heading style.
  • 01:39 So I'm gonna use Heading 1 and Heading 2, Home Ribbon.
  • 01:42 Heading 1 and Heading 2 will be applied throughout this document, so
  • 01:46 let me show you how to do a couple of those.
  • 01:48 First of all, I'm just going to click into the line.
  • 01:51 I could select it if I want to.
  • 01:53 This is a paragraph function, so just clicking into the line will be fine.
  • 01:57 And I'll click Heading 1.
  • 01:59 Now, I'll click into Topic 2 and click Heading 1.
  • 02:02 Now, I'll click on the word Rules, so I want this to be Heading 2,
  • 02:05 it's a sub topics, Heading 2.
  • 02:07 Now, even the stayed flush left on my document, and
  • 02:09 the text is a little smaller.
  • 02:11 It could happen to my Navigation Pane.
  • 02:13 It has been set off to the side, 'cause I can tell it's Heading 2.
  • 02:16 I'm gonna go through, I'm gonna continue this with Topic 3 and
  • 02:20 apply Heading 1, okay?
  • 02:21 So I'm gonna push Pause, finish my headings, and then we'll come back and
  • 02:25 finish the lesson.
  • 02:26 So pushing Pause, I'll be right back.
  • 02:29 All right, you can off to the left of my Navigation pane,
  • 02:32 all my topics have headings applied to them.
  • 02:34 And it's really easy for
  • 02:35 me now just to click around my navigation pane to zoom to that spot in the document.
  • 02:40 So but noticed my Navigation Pane doesn't have page numbers on it.
  • 02:43 This is why we need the table of contents.
  • 02:46 All right, so we already applied the page numbers,
  • 02:49 we now need to put a page break at the top of our document so
  • 02:52 that our table of contents can land on its own page.
  • 02:54 So I'm gonna go ahead and Ctrl+Home up to the top.
  • 02:57 I do have a title already written for my table of contents.
  • 03:00 I'll hit Enter, and now I'm gonna press Ctrl+Enter.
  • 03:03 Now, I could go to Insert Page Breaks, but
  • 03:05 Ctrl+Enter forces a page break, pushes all my topics to the second page,
  • 03:10 and notice my page one is mostly blank, except for the heading up at the time.
  • 03:15 All right, time for the table of contents.
  • 03:18 So on the References ribbon on the left hand side table of contents,
  • 03:22 I'm going to just apply this very top one says automatic Table 1,
  • 03:27 click and there you have it.
  • 03:29 When I scroll up you can see all my topics and the page numbers.
  • 03:33 And that is when I float my mouse over it turns gray because this is a function so
  • 03:37 basically a great thing field called table of contents has been created.
  • 03:41 Notice also when I float my mouse it says, Ctrl+click to follow this link.
  • 03:46 Ctrl+click, follows that link.
  • 03:48 Very nice, but now I have to Ctrl+Home to get back up to the top.
  • 03:51 But Ctrl+click follows that link.
  • 03:53 Now, the navigation pane follows the link as well.
  • 03:56 It's just that a lot of people don't know about the navigation pane.
  • 03:59 And so it as long as I read the tool tip down here that the Ctrl+click will send
  • 04:04 them here.
  • 04:04 All right, the next step is to update this but that's in our next lesson.
  • 04:08 So off to the next lesson.
  • 04:09 Thank you.

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