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About this lesson
Learn how to update the Table of Contents when changes are a made to a document.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
Exercise files
Download the Word document used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Update the Table of Contents.docx59.1 KB
Quick reference
Update the Table of Contents
Learn how to update the Table of Contents when changes are a made to a document.
When to use
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:
- Enter the page breaks as marked in the Exercise file.
- 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.
- Move to the top of the document (Ctrl + Home.)
Update the TOC
- Left click into the Table of Contents area.
- Notice the tiny menu on the upper left corner of the TOC outline.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 00:05 Okay, this lesson is all about how to update a table of contents, because
- 00:08 what would a document be if it didn't have changes when you're finally done with it.
- 00:12 So, that in mind, let's go ahead and take a look of what we're dealing with.
- 00:16 We've got our finished table of contents.
- 00:18 Choose me all the topics all the way to page four.
- 00:21 Notice in the bottom left confirmation that yes, Page 1 of 4 in my document.
- 00:26 So if we scroll down, I do have a couple of red lines in here, page break here.
- 00:30 So I'm gonna hit Ctrl+Enter at the end of this line to force a brand
- 00:34 new page, confirmation on the bottom left.
- 00:36 Yes, Page 3 of 5, all right?
- 00:38 I'm gonna scroll down a little more and find the next red line, page break here,
- 00:43 Ctrl+Enter.
- 00:44 And confirmation, bottom left, Page 5 of 6, all right?
- 00:47 So I magically have 6 pages in here, way at the bottom and
- 00:50 I Ctrl+End to get to the bottom.
- 00:53 I've got a New Topic number 9 and I am going to apply on the Home ribbon,
- 00:58 going to apply Heading 1 and where there's a subtopic,
- 01:01 I'm gonna apply heading 2, all right, so that's all done.
- 01:06 I'm gonna go ahead and collapse my ribbons, click click to collapse
- 01:09 the ribbon on any ribbon header, just double-click Ctrl+Home to the top.
- 01:13 Let's take a look at my new table of contents.
- 01:16 It doesn't look very new, does it?
- 01:17 It only has through page four.
- 01:19 Well that's 'cause I haven't updated.
- 01:22 Come up to the very top and
- 01:23 I click on Contents, notice a little tool button is right on the very top of this.
- 01:28 One of them says table of contents, I can actually redesign it right here.
- 01:32 And the other one says update.
- 01:34 I'm gonna click Update and it's gonna ask me the just the page numbers or
- 01:37 the entire table.
- 01:39 Well, of course, I'm gonna hit the entire table, 'cause I added two new headings.
- 01:42 So I'm gonna click OK and here we go.
- 01:45 Now all the topic headings corrected themselves and
- 01:47 I do have new topic number nine subtopic.
- 01:50 And of course, those are on page 6.
- 01:52 Confirmation, bottom left on my screen says Page 1 of 6.
- 01:56 So yes, all six pages are now accounted for in my table of contents.
- 02:00 Well, I don't necessarily like the design of this table of contents,
- 02:03 I think I wanna change it a little bit.
- 02:05 So again, click on Contents.
- 02:07 This is my table of contents, I can actually change the design right here.
- 02:11 Now, for whatever reason, maybe you don't wanna change the design,
- 02:14 maybe you do, there's two places to do that.
- 02:17 I can actually go to the References ribbon.
- 02:19 Right over here I have a Table of Contents,
- 02:21 I got an automatic, which is what I originally chose.
- 02:25 Automatic Table 2 and you might be tempted to choose manual.
- 02:28 Let's go ahead and click Manual, so you can see what's gonna happen, click.
- 02:33 You literally now need to go in and hand type each one of these.
- 02:36 Now it does say page 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, but if I only had 4 pages,
- 02:40 it's only gonna give me 6.
- 02:42 If I had ten pages, it's only gonna give me six.
- 02:44 I would have had to hand-type them in here.
- 02:47 Now, for me, that's way too much work, so I'm not gonna do that.
- 02:50 This time, instead of going to the references, I'm just gonna hit the little
- 02:53 button right here and I'm gonna choose the second option, Automatic Table 2.
- 02:57 And the reason I like the second option,
- 03:00 is 'cause it puts a nice little table of contents heading within my content, so
- 03:05 I don't have to have a separate title outside of the table of contents.
- 03:09 All right, so after we've done all this work, what if we have one more question,
- 03:13 which by the way is the next video lesson?
- 03:16 What if I don't want this entire sentence,
- 03:18 What are the ribbon functions when when applying to TOC?
- 03:22 What if I don't want that entire sentence in my table of contents,
- 03:24 I just want certain words?
- 03:26 Well that's where we start to mark the entry for
- 03:28 our table of contents and really take control of this process.
- 03:32 Okay, go watch the next video, you're going to learn something very cool.
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