The actual table of contents should be the last thing you think about during the process of its creation. To start, you should distinguish what text you want to be your headers or titles that will be references by the table. On the Home Tab of the Word Document, you'll see a large, rectangular box that looks like the one below. Choose Either Heading 1 or Heading 2 in order to set your text as a heading. (Heading 1 should be used for main chapter, Heading 2 is for breakdowns beneath Heading 1. You'll usually just use Heading 1.)
If you've already typed everything in your document, just highlight those headings in order to switch them over. After you highlight, click heading in the Home Page and the text will turn blue.
If you haven't typed anything in yet (how I do it in the following example), then select Heading 1 or 2 before you type in the heading. Once you've typed what you want to type, press enter and the new line will revert to normal text.
Below you will see an example of where I typed in a heading and then a normal text line was created.
Go through your document and make all of the headings that you think you will need. (You can always add more in, but we'll get to that later.) In my example, I made three "Chapter Titles".
Since we have all of our headings in order, we can make our table of contents. First, go to the place in your document where you want the table to appear, and make sure your text will appear there. You'll want to click the the References Tab in your Word Document. On the left side of the screen, you will see a big button that says Table of Contents. All you have to do is click it and select the table you want to use. Because of the headings we formatted, the program will fill it out for you.
This is what my system generated for me when I pushed the button. See how all of the titles are the same as what I made into headings?
Final portion of the program... Can I edit names / my table once it's made? Of course! See below, how I changed all of the names of my headings? It's doable, but you want to be sure to update your table accordingly. (If your headings change places or pages, you need to update the table too because your page numbers might be off.)
There are two ways to update your table. The first is to go to the References Tab and click the update table button to the left hand side. The second is to hover over the table itself with your mouse, you'll see an icon appear towards the top that will also update the table if you click it. If you just want to update page numbers, click that option. I usually always select Update Entire Table regardless, just to be safe.
Below is my updated table.
Don't be nervous about touching the heading or changing it. It is tool to help you, not to limit you. Below are examples where I changed font, color, text.... and it all worked out.
Best of luck with your project! I'm sure it will be great!
Techy Out!
The Snodster
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