Creating a “Table of Contents”

Having an index makes it easy for us to browse our “Document”.
All we need are “Headings” (“Headings”) in our “Document”.

By clicking on the arrow next to the “Style” box in the “Formatting toolbar”, we see a dropdown menu.
In the dropdown list we see different styles for “Headings” (“Headings”) and “Plain Text”.
Thus, as mentioned previously, in order to be able to create a “Table of contents”, we should have all these “Headings” (“Headings”) put together as a list in our “Document”.

We go through this entire “Document”, select the different “Headings” and subheadings, and give them a “Header style”: Header 1 (“Heading 1”), Header 2 (“Heading 2”) Or Header 3 (“Heading 3 “).
These are the ones that appear in the TOC.

Once we have placed the “Headings” in our “Document”, it is easy to make this into a “Table of contents”.

It is perhaps best, you number your pages first, otherwise this index makes little sense.
Click on “Insert” (“Insert”) – “Page Numbers” (“Page Numbers”) in the menu bar.

Then we place the cursor at a position in our “Document”, where we want the contents.
Then, for “Word” 2003 and XP, choose “Insert” (“Insert”) – “Reference” (“Reference”) – “Index and Tables” (“Index and tables”) from the menu bar.
If you are using the 2000 or ’97 version, choose “Insert” (“Insert”) – “Index and Tables” (“Index and tables”) from the menu bar.
The “Index and Tables” dialog appears:
Choose the “Contents” tab.

In the upper part of the dialog, we find two “preview panes”.
The left is the ” Print Preview” window, the right is the “Web Preview” window.
Since we have no document with links to the Web, we should not have links in the TOC.
So we tick the box for “Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers” (“Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers”).

There is a box for “Show Page Numbers” (“Show page numbers”) which helps insert page numbers which makes the page numbers that we have done absolutely useless.
We also check the box for “Right align page numbers” (“Right align page numbers”).
This gives a professional “look”.
In “Tab Leader” (“Tab leader “), you have several choices in the dropdown menu.

In the “General” section (“General”), we have several choices for the “Format” (“Format”: ) for our index, and we can “Show levels:” (“Show levels “:) if we desire.
Click OK when you’re happy with your settings.

Format “Table of Contents”

We can also format our index.
We again choose “Insert” – “Reference” – “Index and Tables” from the menu bar.
In the “General” section (“General”), choose “Formats” (“Formats”: ) -“From template” (“From template”).
Then click on the “Modify” (Modify) button.

The “Style” (“Style”) dialog appears.

Each level in our “Document” appears here in a list: TOC1, TOC2, TOC3 etc. ..
Select the level, and click the “Modify” button (Modify).
In the “Modify Style”, we give the settings for the level.
Font, font size, bold, italic, color etc..

Click OK when you are satisfied.
Repeat for each level of the “Table of contents”.
Click OK, and then click OK until all dialog closed.
The result:

An update of Contents

Suppose our index is created, but over time the content of our “Document” may change. For example, a whole section has been removed, or has been added.
Should we start again? Yes.

As an example, I delete the entire paragraph in Chapter 1 Windows.
To update the index now, I place the cursor anywhere, no matter where in the TOC, and right-click on the mouse.
From the pop-up menu I choose “Update Field” (“Update field”).
At last!, the index is updated:

Featured Courses

• Downloading iPad Apps
• Lesson 1: Introduction to Publisher
• Lesson 65: File Formats