How to Create Table of Contents in Word 2007/2010

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Microsoft Word gives us option to create automatic table of contents for our documents or books. Here you can see how to create table of contents in Microsoft Word 2007 / 2010.

See how to ceate table of contents and how to update it.

Step-1

Prepare you document in Microsoft Word. I have created a small document as an example, you can use your own word file.

Step-2

Click on Styles arrow to show the Style windows, see screenshot below.

Step-3

Now start applying styles to headings and sub headings according to its level

Heading 1 > Chapter heading

Heading 2 > Content heading and so on. For more detail see screenshot below.

Step-4

Now insert table of contents, Click on References tab and than Table of Contents, right click on predefined Automatic table of contents option and then select suitable option like Insert at Beginning of Document.

View after inserting table of contents.

Step-5

If you already have page numbers in your document header or footer then skip this step.
To insert page numbers in Word document click on Insert tab then Page Number and select a page numbering preset.

Update table of contents

If you have made some changes in your Word document after inserting Table of contents then you need to update this Table.
To update Table of contents click inside the table and then click on Update table option.

Feel free to ask any question, leave your question below in comments section or you can leave thanks note.

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Comments:

  1. Joliya 4 February 2010 at 6:18 pm #

    Hi! to create table of contents in word is really seems easy after reading your this article.

  2. Cuti 16 February 2010 at 6:40 am #

    Very well written with graphical images, nice guide to create table of contents

  3. Helen 23 February 2010 at 4:19 am #

    Very useful article because it was quite difficult for me to create table of contents in microsoft word

  4. Nono 3 March 2010 at 6:48 am #

    nice word tip

  5. Dave 10 March 2010 at 9:15 am #

    Thanks for posting. I was playing with my document for a long while. This is far better than the ‘help file’ in MS word. 10/10 Well done.

  6. Arona 17 May 2010 at 6:38 pm #

    this is really easy to create table of content in word 2007.

  7. Infonote 1 September 2010 at 1:52 am #

    Hi, thanks for your post.

    I have the following problem:
    1) I have document 1 with page numbers in one format.
    2) I have document 2 with page numbers in another format.

    I want to create a table of contents in document 1 with headings from document 2.

    Is this possible? Thanks in advance

  8. magichop 23 September 2010 at 8:40 pm #

    Word 2010 – Is it possible to format the actual table of content styled DIFFERENT from the Heading styles within the document. In other words, I want the table of contents to have stripped down formatting – no bold, 10pt font, etc.

    • trickYguY 24 September 2010 at 2:08 am #

      You can modify the styles.
      Follow the step-2 to show Styles windows, right click on the heading styles or the style that you want to change and click on “Modify” to change font and other format..

  9. kymmie202 31 March 2011 at 11:17 pm #

    This is great…but my doc has 5 levels. In 2010 how do I get levels 4 and 5 to display when I generate the TOC?

    • trickYguY 2 April 2011 at 3:35 am #

      When you open the “Styles” window in step-2, at the bottom there are 3 icons.
      Click on the last icon “Manage Styles”, a window will open
      Click on “Recommend” tab
      Either select all headings from the list (Heading 1 to Heading 9) or select one by one and click the “Show” at the bottom. When done click OK button.
      Now you have all heading from heading 1 to heading 9 in Styles window to create more levels.

      • Abdul 21 July 2011 at 5:11 am #

        I have the same problem as kymmie202. I have tried your suggestion trickYguY but I did not show level 4 and 5 in TOC despite the fact that all 9 levels are displayed in step 2 !!!
        Please, help if you have any solution…

  10. BeeB 15 April 2011 at 2:36 pm #

    So succinctly explained,especially with the window images.Thank you,this was a little more of trouble to me but I got it very quickly here!

  11. saheb 23 June 2011 at 5:39 pm #

    je ne sais pas comment je peux vous remercier, vous êtes géniales

  12. Jake 28 July 2011 at 8:57 am #

    I would like to have TOC which has titles without page number for level 1, and page numbers for all other levels. Is that possible?

  13. bulangiu 4 August 2011 at 1:07 am #

    I did everything u said, but… I don’t know for what reason the TOC does not show the 4th heading…
    I mean I have:
    Heading 1
    Heading 2
    Heading 3
    Heading 4 (missing)
    I tried to refresh with F9… and everything… nothing changes :(

    • emilyjane87 22 August 2011 at 11:56 pm #

      I have the same problem. I can use styles “Heading 1″, “Heading 2″….and so on until “Heading 9″ but in my TOC they do not show past “Heading 3″.

      In the References tab, Table of Contents section, when I click “Add Text” with my “Heading 4″ text highlighted, it does not give me the option to add “level 4″ to my TOC (Or any level higher than 3).

    • emilyjane87 23 August 2011 at 12:02 am #

      OK i figured it out-

      Start with a new TOC. References Tab > Table of Contents > Insert Table of Contents.
      Under the “General” Heading (in red), at Show Levels: Choose the extent of levels to show in your TOC. I used headings 1 -5, so i chose Show Levels: 5

  14. Jibrail 11 August 2011 at 4:24 am #

    Very helpful! Now I know that how to create TOC in Word 2007.

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