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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 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 Table of Contents is found on the References ribbon on the Table of Contents
  • 00:09 tab, and you can see an explanation of it right here.
  • 00:13 When I click the Table of Contents, there is an example of what it will look like.
  • 00:17 Basically, a TOC, table of contents, is used for large manuals,
  • 00:21 lengthened reports, or anytime a page reference to topics is used.
  • 00:26 And it's generally on its own page, you can embed it into a page with texts,
  • 00:31 but generally the rule is to keep it on its own page.
  • 00:34 So rule number one, the table of contents links to heading styles.
  • 00:37 Those are found on the home ribbon under Styles and of course you have to apply
  • 00:41 the styles before creating the table of contents since it links to them.
  • 00:45 You can't create one without them.
  • 00:48 We'll be in four places, the Home ribbon in the Styles group,
  • 00:51 we'll be on the View ribbon just very quickly to activate our navigation pane,
  • 00:55 we'll be in our Insert ribbon to apply page numbers, and
  • 00:59 we'll be in our References ribbon finally to apply the table of contents.
  • 01:03 All right, let's go ahead and get started on the Home ribbon.
  • 01:06 I've highlighted Topic 1 In the document and I'm going to apply Heading 1.
  • 01:12 As I activate that, you can see that the formatting on topic one now
  • 01:15 matches the heading one right here, and then, of course,
  • 01:18 my navigation pane pops up with topic one.
  • 01:20 I'll scroll down to topic two, and I'll do the same thing, apply Heading 1.
  • 01:25 Now sub-topic two is going to get Heading 2.
  • 01:29 And now, as you can see, the navigation pane shows an indent.
  • 01:32 So that's where our change will happen when we actually see the table of
  • 01:35 contents.
  • 01:36 What I'd like you to do on the exercise file is go ahead and go through and
  • 01:40 continue applying topic headings and
  • 01:43 sub-topic headings to the rest of all the headings in this file.
  • 01:47 Then I'll pause the video and when I come back, mine will be done.
  • 01:53 All right, you can see that my table of contents,
  • 01:55 the styles have all been applied.
  • 01:58 So now it's time to actually finish this up.
  • 02:00 Well, we do need page numbers.
  • 02:02 So go ahead and click on the Insert ribbon and
  • 02:04 way over here on the far right hand side we have Page Numbers.
  • 02:07 And I'm going to put mine on the bottom of the page, and off to the right-hand side.
  • 02:12 Just activate that, and they'll automatically apply.
  • 02:15 All right, I'll Ctrl + Home to get back up to the top of my document.
  • 02:19 All right, next we're going to actually put our table of contents in here,
  • 02:23 but we need to do a page break.
  • 02:25 So the page break can happen in two places.
  • 02:27 You can click on Insert, Pages and Break.
  • 02:31 Or we could go to our Layout and we could go to Breaks and Page Break.
  • 02:36 Or you can do the fast way which is Ctrl + Enter on your keyboard.
  • 02:39 It's your choice, as long as we get a page break,
  • 02:42 which will then leave our table of contents title right here.
  • 02:45 I'm gonna click behind my Table of Contents, hit Enter, and
  • 02:49 now it's time to go ahead and place that in there.
  • 02:51 So that is on the References ribbon, the Table of Contents, and I'm just gonna
  • 02:55 go ahead and use the default one right at the top, the Automatic Table 1.
  • 02:58 When I click, it sends my screen down but I have to scroll back up to see it.
  • 03:03 And there we have the table of contents.
  • 03:05 Notice, page 2, page 3.
  • 03:07 When I float my mouse up at the top, It looks all grayed out.
  • 03:10 This is because there's field codes that pulled all of these together.
  • 03:16 So, field codes will always highlight gray.
  • 03:18 It's okay, you can still click in there.
  • 03:20 You can still type in there.
  • 03:21 But whenever it's refreshed, that will change.
  • 03:23 Now, another thing that happened is, for instance, Sub Topic 2.
  • 03:27 When I float my mouse on Sub Topic 2, I get a tooltip that says.
  • 03:31 Ctrl + Click to follow the link.
  • 03:33 So I'll press Control and I'll click and it takes me exactly to sub topic two.
  • 03:39 So that's how you can quickly move through
  • 03:42 a document by using the Table of Contents itself.
  • 03:45 But I must tell you,
  • 03:46 that is why I like the navigation pane cuz I can just click on topic three,
  • 03:50 topic two, sub-topic two, it takes me directly to where I click right over here.
  • 03:55 All right, table of contents is awesome when you know how to use it and
  • 03:59 what it's for.
  • 04:00 And so, stay with me with the rest of these lessons,
  • 04:02 we're going to take these a step further.
  • 04:04 Thank you.

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