Create a Table of Contents
Updated: April 13, 2004
Curriculum Areas: Language arts, social studies
Grade Level: Elementary school and up
Application: Microsoft® Word 2002
Tip: Create a table of contents for Word reports, special school program booklets, and more.
Description:
A table of contents is a list of the headings from a document used to show an overview of the topics in the content. You can create a table of contents using the built-in Heading styles in Microsoft Word. When you build a table of contents, Word searches for the headings that you used in the document, sorts them by heading level, and displays the table of contents in the document.
If you are creating a document for the Web, you can put the table of contents in a Web frame so that you can easily navigate through the document. When you display a document in print layout view, the table of contents includes page numbers along with the headings. When you switch to Web layout view, the headings are displayed as hyperlinks so that you can jump directly to a topic. To quickly navigate through a document as you view it in Word, consider using the Document Map.
How To:
1. | Start Microsoft Word, and then type your document such as a report or a program booklet. |
2. | When you want a heading or special title to appear in your table of contents, you must format the heading using one of the built-in Heading styles. Click anywhere within a heading, and then select a built-in Heading style from either the Style box on the Formatting toolbar or from the Styles and Formatting task pane. |
3. | Continue formatting all the headings in your document by applying a built-in Heading style. |
4. | When you are all done editing your document and all headings are formatted with a Word Heading style, click the place in your document where you want the table of contents to appear.
Tip: Add a new page at the beginning of your report, and then insert the table of contents on this new page. |
5. | Click Insert, then Reference, and then select Index and Tables. |
6. | On the Table of Contents tab, make your selections to format the table of contents the way you want, and then click OK. Print your document, which now contains a table of contents, including page numbers. |
Additional Tips About Viewing a Table of Contents
| • | After creating the table of contents, click the Document Map button (it looks like a magnifying glass on top of a window). Your headings will now appear along the left side of the window as hyperlinks. To navigate to that section of your document, just click one of the links. |
| • | To view your document as it would appear on a Web site, switch to Web layout view after creating the table of contents. You can put the table of contents in a frame by clicking Format, then Frame, and then selecting Table of Contents in Frame. Your headings will now appear as hyperlinks in a frame along the left side of the window. To navigate to a particular section of your document, hold down the CTRL key and click the link to that section. If you save the file as a Web page, you can open it in your browser to test the links. |
