#Word document headings table of content how to
#Word document headings table of content update
#Word document headings table of content Pc
#Word document headings table of content mac

But if some of those default settings don’t suit your purposes, it’s easy to create a customised TOC.

#Word document headings table of content how to

How to insert a customised table of contentsįor many purposes, the automatic table will be fine.

#Word document headings table of content update

On a Mac: click on the table (avoiding hyperlinks) to see a Table of Contents tab, which has an arrow on the right that offers an option to Update Table… (otherwise double-tap on the TOC) to get the Update Table of Contents dialog box, which has the same two options as above. You can also call up the Update Table of Contents dialog box by right-clicking in the table of contents.

In the Update Table of Contents dialog box, select the ‘Update entire table’ option.

Click in the table to see the Update Table tab above the table (as you can see below), and click on that tab.

Rather, you update it, which will refresh the table with any changes to the headings themselves and their page numbers. How to update the table of contentsĪs you make changes to your document, you don’t edit this table directly. Otherwise, the outcome is the same as on the PC. On a Mac: the Table of Contents button provides a menu that has at the top five automatic tables that differ in text style (but all offer the ‘Table of Contents heading’).

If your headings aren’t showing up in the table of contents, check out my note on user-defined styles in my post on using Word Styles.

Generally, and certainly in the Australian Style Manual, it is correct to call your table of contents simply ‘Contents’ – I guess readers can see it is a table – so Table 1 is my preferred quick go-to.

If you choose Automatic Table 2 (rather than 1), the only difference is that your table header will be ‘Table of Contents’.

(Don’t manually adjust the formatting of the table entries because you’ll lose those changes when you update the table.) For example, if you wish Heading 1 text in the TOC to be bold or lower level headings not to be indented, you can modify their styles to suit. That means you can alter the style of the table of contents by modifying those styles.

The table entries are styled as TOC1, TOC2 and TOC3.

Entries are hyperlinked to their headings, so you can move to a section by control-clicking on a heading in the table of contents.

The TOC includes page numbers with leading dots.

By default, the Automatic Table 1 shows Level 1 to Level 3 headings.

On a Mac: the Table of Contents button provides a menu that has at the top five automatic tables that differ in text style (but all offer the ‘Table of Contents heading’) Points to note In my example document, I get the following table of contents, constructed from the headings I’ve styled.

Place your cursor where you want the table of contents to be – this may be just after a title page or perhaps after an Executive Summary.

To insert an automatic table of contents: How to insert an automatic table of contents

#Word document headings table of content mac

The minor variations on Mac 365 are mentioned at the end of each section.

#Word document headings table of content Pc

We’ll look at the PC version of Word 365 first. It’s simple to insert a table of contents and to select how it should look. Let’s assume you have your document set up with headings styled as Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3 etc. How to insert a customised table of contents.How to insert an automatic table of contents.

If you are new to styles, start at my introductory post What are Word Styles and how do you use them? Contents Many people have these exact challenges, and they may use a screen reader to help them.Ī screen reader doesn’t just read out loud word for word, it also has some clever features that simulate a navigation menu of chapters or topics within the document. With this navigation screen reader users can also quickly and easily tab through to get to content they need.Creating a table of contents (TOC) is super easy if you have applied styles to your headings.

if you have sight issues and can’t see it properly.

if you couldn't use a mouse and rely solely on a keyboard or assistive technology to read and navigate through it.

Documents often have visual and written cues to help you understand the structure of the content. These cues enable you to quickly skim through the document and directly dip into particular sections or topics of interest.