The table created in the steps above will list the current names of your defined headings and subheadings, along with the current page number of each. Step 3: Automatically Update Your Table of Contents Click it to reveal a drop-down list of the various ways that Word can format your table for you.Ĭlick one of the styles to choose it, and Word will automatically generate your table of contents in the location you specified. Once there, click the References tab in the toolbar.Īt the far left of the References tab you’ll see a button labeled Table of Contents. For example, you may wish to insert a new blank page at the beginning of your document ( Insert > Blank Page from the Word toolbar). Once you’ve added all of your desired headings and subheadings, place your cursor in the location where you’d like your automatically generated table of contents to appear. In your actual document, you’ll have paragraphs of text between each Chapter and Subheading. In the screenshots, the text is omitted for simplicity. Remember, you’re applying these styles to your actual document, not to a manually created table of contents you may already have. If your document has sub-headings, select the first one and repeat the steps above, this time choosing “Heading 2.” Repeat these steps as necessary and you’ll end up with something like the screenshot below. In this case, select the desired heading style directly or click the small downward facing arrow at the bottom of the list to expand all of the styles options. Note that if your Word window is wide enough, you may see the style options listed directly in the toolbar instead of the “Styles” button. In the drop-down list that appears, select “Heading 1” to define your selected text as the first primary heading. Next, head up to the Word toolbar (or the “ Ribbon,” as Microsoft so adorably named it) and, from the Home tab, click the Styles button.

To start off, select your first chapter or heading by highlighting it in your document. Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator relies on styles, which are special formats you apply to your document so that Word knows which parts of your text are headings, subheadings, paragraphs, and so on. Therefore, the first step to automatically generating a table of contents is to make sure that your document has the appropriate styles applied.

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