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About this lesson

Learn how to update the Table of Contents when changes are made to a document.

Exercise files

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Update the TOC - Exercise.docx
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Quick reference

Update the Table of Contents

As a document is edited and changed, it is inevitable that the Table of Contents (TOC) will require an update.  This is a surprisingly simple task as the video will demonstrate.

Instructions:

Follow along with the video and make the following changes to the Exercise file:

  1. Enter the page breaks as marked in the Exercise file.
  2. Also, select the text at the bottom of the document, “Topic 9” and apply Heading 1 style. Select the text at the bottom of the document, “Sub Topic 9” and apply Heading 2 style.
  3. Move to the top of the document (Ctrl + Home)

 

Update the TOC:

  1. Left click into the Table of Contents area.
    Notice the tiny menu on the upper left corner of the TOC outline.
     
  2. Click the “Update Table…” option and the following box appears:

 
Update page numbers only – will do exactly what it says.
Update entire table will capture all changes to heading text and page numbers as well.

  1. Left click again into the Table of Contents area.
    Notice the tiny menu on the upper left corner of the TOC outline.
    Click the first button that says “Table of Contents” when your mouse is over it.
     
  2. Choose the TOC Style you prefer.
    The MANUAL option requires you to hand-type the heading and page numbers, and it will at least provide the TOC format structure. Caution: Manual Table will not auto-link to headings.

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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  • 00:04 Table of contents can be updated as the document is updated,
  • 00:08 as the document changes.
  • 00:09 In this case, I'm using the same file from the last lesson, but
  • 00:14 I've numbered the topics plus I'm going to add some page breaks.
  • 00:18 So right here it says, Add Page Break here, Ctrl+Enter.
  • 00:22 So click here and I'm going to push everything to the next page.
  • 00:26 I'll scroll down some more and here's another one.
  • 00:29 Put a page break right here.
  • 00:32 And scroll down some more.
  • 00:34 And now I have another red instruction that says New Topic 9, so
  • 00:37 I'll just select a previous topic.
  • 00:39 Click the paintbrush and apply that to New Topic number 9.
  • 00:45 And then it's sub topic, I don't have one handy, so
  • 00:48 it's actually faster just to select sub topic.
  • 00:51 Click the Styles and go to Heading 2.
  • 00:54 Now we want these to be added to the table of contents at the top.
  • 00:58 So let's Ctrl+Home to get up to the table of contents.
  • 01:01 There's two ways to update this.
  • 01:04 The first way, of course, is on the References ribbon.
  • 01:07 Left-hand side we do have Update Table.
  • 01:10 Well, I should preface that by actually clicking on the table and
  • 01:13 then we have Update Table.
  • 01:15 Now should I update page numbers only or the entire table?
  • 01:19 Well, my choice would be Entire Table.
  • 01:20 I'll click OK on that one.
  • 01:23 And did you see all the numbers change?
  • 01:26 Now I'm going to do this again so I'm going to undo that change, Ctrl+Z.
  • 01:31 And we're going to update this again, but
  • 01:33 this time directly from the Table of Contents box.
  • 01:37 Notice I have a little menu up at the top.
  • 01:40 I have the Update Table button and another one that allows me to change
  • 01:45 the design of the table of contents or actually remove the table of contents.
  • 01:50 Notice, we have an option down here called manual.
  • 01:53 I'm going to apply that just to show you why you don't want it.
  • 01:56 When I click on the Manual Table of contents, I can see that I have a table of
  • 02:00 contents It changes it entirely and puts in a bunch of text boxes for me to
  • 02:04 literally type in every heading and change every page number, it's a lot of work.
  • 02:09 I choose never to use that option if I don't have to.
  • 02:13 So I'll hit the dropdown again.
  • 02:15 I chose Contents in the last lesson for the title.
  • 02:18 And this time I'm going to choose the Table 2 option for table of contents.
  • 02:23 So then I can remove the title that I typed in.
  • 02:26 Okay, I'm going to go and activate this one, and
  • 02:31 watch all the topics will update.
  • 02:35 Notice in the bottom left hand corner of my screen, I do have six pages, and
  • 02:39 they are all accounted for here.
  • 02:41 The new headings I put in, are accounted for right here.
  • 02:44 And since this one is labeled table of Contents, I no longer actually
  • 02:49 have to have this heading on my sheet at all, so I can delete that one.
  • 02:54 Now I do have one problem left in this, and that problem is right here.
  • 02:58 I have full sentences.
  • 03:00 When I really don't want a full sentence, I want kind of a different option there.
  • 03:05 Well, in the next lesson, I'm going to show you how you can get
  • 03:09 really particular about what part of the topic name or
  • 03:13 that sentence is used within your table of contents, all right?
  • 03:18 So meet me there in the next lesson,
  • 03:21 you'll have a Level 3 of the Table of Contents.

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