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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 ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Table of Contents
166.6 KB Table of Contents - Solution
94.9 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:

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

Apply Page Numbers:

  1. 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:

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

Create the Table of Contents on Page 1:

  1. Move your insertion point below the Table of Contents title on page 1
  2. Click the References ribbon
  3. Click Table of Contents
  4. 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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  • 00:04 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.

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