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:
Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Table of Contents.docx20.9 KB Table of Contents - Solution.docx
20.4 KB
Quick reference
Table of Contents
Learn to create an automated A Table of Contents (TOC).
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:
Home Ribbon VIEW Ribbon INSERT Ribbon REFERENCES Ribbon
Styles group Navigation pane Page Number Table of Contents
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.
Login to download- 00:04 Hello, in this video you're going to create a table of contents.
- 00:08 If you have the exercise file open on you screen,
- 00:11 I want to show you just a few things that are going to happen.
- 00:14 First of all, the table of contents is used for large manuals, lengthy reports,
- 00:18 any time a page number reference to the topics is needed.
- 00:21 It's always a good practice to put the table of contents on its own
- 00:24 page rather than embedded in the text on another page.
- 00:28 And there's a couple of rules you need to know.
- 00:29 First of all, table of contents links to headings styles.
- 00:33 On the home ribbon, right over here on the right, there's all your styles and
- 00:37 we have heading 1, heading 2 and a few others in there as well.
- 00:41 And the second rule you have to apply the heading styles before you create the table
- 00:45 of contents.
- 00:46 So there's four areas you'll be working with.
- 00:48 The home ribbon and the styles.
- 00:51 The view ribbon, right over here at view ribbon, and turn on navigation pane, and
- 00:56 the reason we have that on is so we can watch the headings build as we apply them.
- 01:00 The next one will be the insert ribbon.
- 01:02 Click insert and way over here on the right,
- 01:04 you'll see one that says page number.
- 01:06 We got to go ahead and put page numbers on the pages, so
- 01:09 we know exactly what page we're referencing.
- 01:12 So page number, bottom of page, and
- 01:14 I'm going to click the one on the right hand side.
- 01:17 Now, that puts me in my footer.
- 01:20 To get back out of there,
- 01:21 I simply double click back into the document, click, click.
- 01:24 And that closes the printer.
- 01:25 Makes my document light up again so I know I'm back in my document.
- 01:29 The last section we'll be using is the references ribbon.
- 01:32 And right here on the left is Table of Contents, but
- 01:35 we have some work to do first.
- 01:36 We must first apply our heading styles.
- 01:39 So, go ahead and click on topic one.
- 01:41 Click on your Home ribbon.
- 01:43 Over in the Styles group, select Heading 1.
- 01:45 A couple of things will happen.
- 01:47 The font has already changed on my Topic 1 as soon as I float
- 01:50 my mouse over the heading style.
- 01:51 But when you click it, watch what happens to your navigation pane.
- 01:55 Topic 1 shows up.
- 01:55 All right, let's just scroll down, apply Topic 2.
- 01:58 So I click on Topic 2 and apply Heading 1.
- 02:02 Now I got Sub Topic 2, so I click on Sub Topic 2, come up and apply Heading 2.
- 02:08 Now you can see around the navigation pane, they're beginning to stack in there.
- 02:11 Sub Topic 2 is a little indented.
- 02:13 That's just fine.
- 02:14 What I want you to do is pause the video and
- 02:17 continue on with every one of these topics and sub topics and apply those headings,
- 02:21 and then start the video again when you're done doing that work.
- 02:26 All right, when you've got the work done you can see it all in
- 02:29 your navigation pane, how all the headings have built themselves in here.
- 02:33 It's time to go ahead and create the table of contents.
- 02:35 We're going to force the table of contents to be on it's own page by simply
- 02:39 placing a page break right behind the word contents.
- 02:43 There's two ways to do that.
- 02:44 You can use your keyboard and press Ctrl+Enter, or you can come up to
- 02:48 your page layout ribbon, hit the breaks button, and then click page.
- 02:53 Either way, its your personal preference how you want to do that.
- 02:56 After the page break is in there, go ahead and control home to the top and
- 02:59 you'll see your table of contents.
- 03:01 Title right here.
- 03:02 We'll hit enter once to put our insertion point below it.
- 03:05 And this is exactly where our Table of Contents will appear.
- 03:10 So go ahead and click on the reference ribbon.
- 03:12 On the left hand side we have table of contents, and
- 03:14 you can choose automatic, automatic.
- 03:17 I don't advise manual right now, because manual means you're going to hand type all
- 03:20 the page numbers and all the titles.
- 03:22 We want to do the automatic one.
- 03:24 So I want to click on this top one, it says Contents.
- 03:28 And if I scroll back up to the top, there it is, your Table of Contents.
- 03:32 When I float my mouse over the top of it, it turns blue.
- 03:35 Basically grays out, so it knows I'm there.
- 03:37 And also when you float your mouse on any one of these headings,
- 03:40 a little tool tip says Ctrl+click to follow.
- 03:43 Let's go ahead and practice that.
- 03:44 Ctrl+click on a topic and it takes me exactly to that topic.
- 03:49 It's a wonderful thing.
- 03:51 The table of contents is very user friendly very easy to apply.
- 03:55 And it will make your document look very professional with all the corresponding
- 03:59 page numbers on the right hand side.
Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.