This article applies to Word 2007 and above.

Word makes it so easy to create a table of contents (TOC) automatically that you might wonder why you would ever want to create one manually. I can speak only for my own experience, but there are some documents where I still do this. In most cases, they are “yearbooks” or directories for various organizations. The content (and pagination) remains largely unchanged from year to year, and the variety of the content makes it impractical to use specific heading styles systematically. The TOC is very simple, with all entries at the same level (regardless of the level of heading used on the page), and not all headings are included. In such a situation, a manual TOC is more practical.

In previous versions of Word, creating a manual TOC required starting entirely from scratch. The manual TOC shown at the beginning ofDemo: Let Word create your table of contents is a worst-case scenario: the user has typed in the titles and then pressed the period key to get a row of leader dots, stopping at an approximate location to type in the page number. Even in Word 2003 and earlier, you can do better than this, setting a right-aligned tab stop with a period leader (as explained inmy article on number alignment). You can even use the built-in TOC styles (TOC 1, TOC 2, and so on), modified to your preference.

Table – a list of captions etc within a document e.g. Table of Contents, Table of Figures etc. Table – a grid of boxes or cells placed in a Word document from Insert Table. Normally the two are separate and it’s clear from the context which one we’re talking about.

Word 2007 and above, however, offer what at least appears to be a simpler approach. On the References tab, in the Table of Contents group, click the button for Table of Contents. This opens a dropdown menu/gallery that includes two “Automatic Table” options and one “Manual Table” (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Table of Contents dropdown

If you choose “Manual Table,” you will get the result shown in Figure 2.

• If you're using Word 2011 for Mac, click here to view the lesson on creating a table of contents in Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac. Step 1 - Assign Heading Styles to your document Microsoft Word provides a feature called Styles as a way to format and structure a document in a consistent way.
• Word has a great feature that allows you to create a great-looking table of contents automatically if you know what type of headings to use. The great thing is that even if you already have a Word document with a lot of content, it’s very easy to edit it so that you can generate the table of contents automatically.

Figure 2. Manual table of contents inserted by Word

As you can see, the TOC is inserted as a content control. It includes a title (“Table of Contents”), which you can manually edit or delete if desired. Each entry is also a content control, which means that you can easily replace the default text just by clicking in the control and typing; the content control is overwritten when you type in it, so that your title entry becomes plain text. Page numbers can be selected and changed manually.

Adding entries

As you can see, the TOC includes two series of entries at three levels. These entries use the default TOC styles: TOC 1, TOC 2, and TOC 3. Filling in the existing entries is fairly simple. What is far from obvious is how to get additional entries. There are (at least) two ways to go about this:

Cut and paste

You can select an entry at any level and paste it to create more entries at the same level, but this is a little tricky to do, as you will find if you experiment. There are (so far as I am able to determine) only two right ways to do it:

1. Select an entry that still contains a content control (to make it easier to type a new title in the entry you insert).

2. Use Ctrl+C to copy the entry.

3. Place the insertion point at the beginning of the entry that will be below the entry you want to insert.

4. If you have already overwritten the content control in that entry, you can press Ctrl+V to paste.

5. If the entry still contains a content control, it will be selected. Press the left arrow key to exit the content control, then paste.

6. Alternatively, you can press Enter at the end of an entry, which will create a new paragraph in Normal style, and then paste the copied text into the new paragraph. You’ll be left with a paragraph in Normal style that you can either delete or use as the insertion point for further entries.

While this method is a bit tricky, it is the only one I can really recommend to novices. Once you read the next section, I think you’ll see why.

If you have many new entries to create, you may want to display the Office Clipboard (click the dialog launcher in the bottom right corner of the Clipboard group on the Home tab) in order to collect all three TOC levels for pasting as needed.

Note: One anomaly I have noted when pasting from the Office Clipboard is that a space is inserted before the page number. This will cause your new entries not to match existing ones unless you delete the space.

Apply TOC styles manually

As noted, if you press Enter at the end of any of the TOC entries, the paragraph that is created is in the Normal style. In order to create a new TOC entry, you must apply the appropriate TOC style (TOC 1, TOC 2, or TOC 3). This is also the method you will have to use if you want to add levels (apply TOC 4, for example).

Unfortunately, not only are the TOC styles difficult to access, applying them does not accomplish what you might expect.

Although the TOC styles are designated as Quick Styles, they are also coded as “Hide until used.” This means that they are hidden until you use them. Consequently, you need to open either the Styles pane or the floating Apply Styles toolbar. You can easily open the latter withCtrl+Shift+S, and when it is open, you can click on the button to open the Styles pane (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. The Apply Styles toolbar

You can also open the Styles pane with Alt+Ctrl+Shift+S or by clicking the dialog launcher in the Styles group on the Home tab. The styles displayed in the Apply Styles toolbar list will be the same ones displayed in the Styles pane. (For more on different ways to display and access styles, see “Display Document Styles.”)

You can click Options… in the Styles pane to select which styles are displayed. Because the TOC styles are designated as “Hide until used,” you will have to select “All styles” initially. Once you have actually applied the styles, they should be displayed with “In use” or “In current document” selected, and they will also be displayed in the Quick Styles gallery.

Once you can see the TOC styles in the Apply Styles list or the Styles pane or the Quick Styles gallery, you can select the desired level to apply to your new paragraph. Unfortunately, applying the TOC styles is disappointing.

By default, the TOC styles do not have a tab stop for the page number. This makes sense because a tab stop set for the default page margins would be in the wrong place if you change the margins. When you create an automatic TOC, either by using the content controls in the Table of Contents gallery or by using the Insert Table of Contents dialog, Word automatically sets a right-aligned tab stop, with period leader, to be just inside the right margin (if your line length is 6.5″, for example, Word will set the tab stop at 6.49″).

My expectation in using this Manual Table content control was that the same thing would happen: the TOC styles would be updated to match the current margin settings. Certainly the default entries in the TOC do work this way. My expectation was that I would apply a TOC style to my paragraph, type the title manually, then press Tab to get to the tab stop where I would type in the page number.

But this is not how it works. When you apply the TOC styles to new paragraphs in this content control, they have the default out-of-the-box formatting, with no tab stop. You can add a tab stop, either through the Tabs dialog or by clicking on the ruler, and you can add a period leader through the Tabs dialog, but this is extra work.

Moreover, the Level 1 entries in the Manual Table content control are formatted as bold; yet when you apply TOC 1 to a new paragraph, it is not bold. TOC styles are set to update automatically, so you can format your TOC 1 paragraph as bold, and that will update the style. But that’s still more work.

Worse still, you’d think that you might be able to update the TOC styles to match the entries in the content control. Nope! If you select a Level 1 heading, right-click and choose Styles, then Update TOC 1 to Match Selection, what actually happens is that the default TOC 1 style is applied to the Level 1 entries in the TOC. This is disastrous and absurd.

So why use the Manual Table contents control?

Good question. The only advantage to this would be to have the TOC styles automatically configured for your margins, but they are not. So in the long run, once you know how to access and modify the TOC styles, you would probably do just as well to insert a TOC from scratch just as you would have done in previous versions of Word.

This article copyright © 2012 by Suzanne S. Barnhill.

Look at the nearest Microsoft Word document you have. There’s a good chance that it’s a document that’s just a few pages long. And without a Word table of contents.

But pick up software documentation or a research report. It wouldn’t be called a “professional document” without a pretty well-formatted Table of Contents.

Word Create Manual Table Of Contents Machine

You shouldn’t look at the job of making a Table of Contents (we will occasionally call it a TOC also) as a chore. Making a TOC isn’t only for dense reports or your next bestseller. It can be for something as simple as a daily journal or a school assignment. You should create a Table of Contents whenever appropriate.

Microsoft Word makes it easy. We will look into a few ways to create a Table of Contents in Word.

But first, let’s go into the benefits of a Table of Contents for a Word document.

Get your free Word shortcuts cheatsheet!

Download the print-ready shortcut cheatsheet for Word.

Why is a Table of Contents so essential?

Are TOCs relevant when we have bookmarks and advanced search features on digital devices? The short answer is -- Yes. A Table of Contents isn’t just for navigating long documents.

Here are five benefits you should immediately look at:

1. It gives the reader a bird’s eye view of the document. A TOC is like an outline. At a glance, you can see how a document will flow from one topic to the next.
2. It makes a document look professional. A document with a TOC looks more organized and professional than a document that lacks one.
3. It is a key organizational aid for the author. Think of it like a roadmap and the first draft for a TOC can help you arrange your thoughts (and even brainstorm).
4. It makes a document easier to discuss. A TOC can signal the quality of the document. Your teacher or your book agent can tell at a glance if the material is worth a read by just glancing at the table of contents.
5. It gives you a learning path. A TOC is a well-ordered series of steps. Steal them from an instructional book to understand the learning path on any subject of your choice.

Check out this quick video on how to create a table of contents in Word:

How to Create a Table of Contents in Word

Microsoft Word can automatically build a Table of Contents for you. You need to only outline the content and then specify the heading styles with basic formatting. Let’s take this step by step.

1. Format your document using heading styles. Select each chapter in your document and apply Heading Styles to them. Here, you are marking up the section headers so that Word can recognize them.

Go to Ribbon > Home > Styles. Select the text and apply headings for all the text you want to include in the table of contents.

You can create a hierarchy within the main chapters with the help of the heading styles. For instance, use Heading 1 for new sections or chapters. Heading 2 for subsections within the section, and Heading 3 for smaller units or topics inside them.

Word scans the document for any text formatted as either Heading 1, 2, or 3 and then uses these to create the format for the TOC.

2. Position the Table of Contents on the page. Place the cursor on the specific position where you want the TOC to appear in your document. This is commonly somewhere at the beginning of the document.

4. Click the Table of Contents command. Go to Ribbon > References > Table of Contents. Choose from one of the two automatic types available. The only difference between the two is the heading of 'Contents' or 'Table of Contents' at the top.

5. The Table of Contents is inserted automatically. Word scans the document and uses the heading styles to construct the order of the sections and subsections and their page numbers. This is a barebones TOC and you can continue to work with this and make it more stylish.

6. Update the Table of Contents anytime. You can always update a Table of Contents that has been created automatically. Update the table if you change the heading styles, rearrange the contents, or change the text. Also, update it if you make any changes to the content that affects the page numbers.

To update a table of contents that was created automatically, click References > Update Table.

Choose to Update page numbers only or Update entire table if you want to update the page numbers and the text.

7. Create a Table of Contents manually. When the automatic method is so effortless, why would you feel the need to make one manually? There could be two reasons:

• The document is without any styles which Word can recognize.
• The document has too much of variety makes an automatic TOC difficult.

To create a manual table, go to References > Table of Contents > Click the dropdown to reveal the option for Manual Table.

Microsoft Word inserts a TOC with placeholders which you can now edit. You can modify this with your own fonts and colors. Do remember that you also have to insert the page numbers manually too.

A TOC created manually cannot be updated automatically.

You do not have to settle for the basic Table of Contents that Microsoft Word creates for you. You can modify any TOC and even create a custom Table of Contents of your own.

How to customize the Table of Contents

You can easily customize a TOC with the Table of Contents dialog box. Go to References > Table of Contents > Custom Table of Contents to launch the dialog.

Any changes you make here will be visible in the Print Preview and Web Preview windows.

Seven advanced techniques to customize the TOC

1. Choose a different format for the TOC

You can change an entire table by choosing a different format. In the General section, expand the dropdown for Formats and choose an appearance.

2. Change the appearance of the items in the TOC

Remember, the appearance of your TOC is ultimately controlled by style definitions. You may want to tweak the overall look of the TOC by creating your own styles for the headings. These modified styles can be saved alongside the in-built ones and applied across the document for a consistent look. Follow these steps.

1. Click Modify. If the Modify button is grayed out, change Formats to From template.

2. In the Styles list, click the level that you want to change and then click Modify. Here, TOC 1 corresponds to heading level 1 in your document, TOC 2 to heading level 2, TOC 3 to heading 3 and so on.

Design 3055:cad 3mr. mac's virtual existence center. 3. In the Modify Style dialog box, you can change the font or its color. Make any other formatting change like text indentation and then click OK.

4. Before you click OK, you can choose whether the style change applies to the current document or to all future documents. To save it for future use, click the checkbox for Add to the Styles gallery.

3. Change the levels of the style headings shown

A TOC can be itemized, or you can just include the major sections. The Show levels number allows you to change the number of levels displayed in your table of contents. The “Levels” here refers to the style headings you have applied to your sections.

For instance: H1, H2, H3… etc. If you set it on 2, then all text with the Heading 1 style or the Heading 2 style is displayed.

Word Create Manual Table Of Contents Macbook

4. Change or add dot leaders in the TOC

Dot leaders are the lines or dots that connect the items in the index to page numbers. These leader lines are mentioned in many style guides as a necessary part of thesis documents.

In the Table of Contents dialog box, click the dropdown for the Tab leader list and select the dotted line option. Alternatively, choose the leader line you want or select “none” to remove it from the TOC.

5. Add a non-heading style

Word won’t include a non-heading style when it inserts an automatic TOC. By default, Word only includes headings 1 through 9. But it gives you a method to include any other style you create in the index. Let’s say you want to add another heading called “A Brief Guide” at the top of the content and the TOC.

In the Table of Contents dialog box, click the Options button to open this screen:

Right now, it maps the styles in use only to the TOC levels. As you can see, the three styles, Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 are mapped as levels 1. 2, and 3.

Go down the boxes until you find Title, which has no mapped TOC level. Enter 1 to map Title to the TOC top level.

Click OK twice to exit the dialogs. Word will prompt you to replace the contents. Click Yes to replace the TOC.

6. Create a clickable Table of Contents

Creating a hyperlinked Table of Contents is expected in the digital age. Navigation is faster. It is also another condition to submit a thesis or dissertation.

Click the Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers checkbox.

Also, uncheck the Show page numbers box if you just want to use the hyperlinks.

7. Place a simple border around the Table of Contents

You can use Word’s Shapes feature to insert a border around the TOC. Set Shape Fill to “No Fill” and then add Shape Styles or use Format Shape to design the look of the pseudo-border around the table.

Remember to add Table of Contents to your documents

The automatic Table of Contents feature is a time saver. But to catch the eye, you need to dive into different styles and custom tables. To sum up:

1. Structure your document.
2. Decide the levels you want to display.
3. Change the style attributes to match your needs.

As you begin making your own, you will have your own questions. Hopefully, this guide has illustrated the basic process well enough for you to take the plunge. Are you more comfortable with Table of Contents now?

Word Create Manual Table Of Contents Mac Word

If you are looking to sharpen your Microsoft Office skills, check out our Microsoft Word course to learn time-saving tips and tricks for formatting your documents.

Ready to master Microsoft Office?

Word Create Manual Table Of Contents Mac Pages

Start learning for free with GoSkills courses