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 Word 2007 / 2010.
See also How to Create table of Figures Word 2007 2010
Create Table of Contents in Word 2007 / 2010
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 then 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.
View Comments (38)
Hi! to create table of contents in word is really seems easy after reading your this article.
Very well written with graphical images, nice guide to create table of contents
Very useful article because it was quite difficult for me to create table of contents in microsoft word
nice word tip
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.
this is really easy to create table of content in word 2007.
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
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.
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..
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?
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.
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...
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!