Basic steps to generate Table of Contents in Microsoft Word 2007 are
- Define Styles
1.1. Assign Styles
- Assign Levels
- Generate Table of Contents
The above three steps are the basic outlines. Now we’ll look on detail on each of them.
Step 1. Define Styles
Styles are the pre-defined formatting in Word. See figure below.
To generate we can define our own styles or we can use the one provided by default in windows. I define my own styles.
How to define our own styles ?
- From main menu select Home.
- Then click the icon as shown in above figure.
- Then you’ll see dialog box something like below, then click the icon hightlighted in red.
Then you’ll see dialogbox as shown below.
Now supply the Name for your heading, I used “Report Main Heading”
Leave other fields as it it. Under Formatting
Select the font face type and size for your main heading. You can also set the justification and spacing for you heading. If you want to control more settings then you’ll have to click the format button which is at the bottom-left side of the dialog box.
After you’ve successfully defined your style. Hit OK. Then the style defined recently will be shown in the styles listing.
Likewise define styles for your sub-heading and other mini-heading too, depending on your requirements.
I defined two more styles with following settings.
Name : Report Sub-Heading
Indentation : Justification Spacing : 1.5 lines
Font face : Times New Roma Size : 14pt Bold
Name : Report Mini-heading
Indentation : Justification Spacing :1.5 lines
Font face : Times New Roma Size : 12pt Bold
Finally, All styles defined the Styles dialog box looks like
The one highlighted in red are the styles, we defined.
Step 1.1. How to Assign Styles to Heading ?
This is very easy, put the cursor inside the Heading and then click on the Style you defined. If you have defined the style like mine. Then put the cursor inside the Heading then click on Report Main Heading. Then the style is assigned to that paragraph.
If you’ve followed me till here, then the rest is just click-click.
Step 2. Assign Levels.
Before continuing with this step, you’ll have to know something about levels in table of contents.
Chapter 1 – Level1
Chapter 1.1 – Level2
Chapter 1.1.1 – Level3
Chapter 18.104.22.168 – Level4
Chapter 2 – Level1
Chapter 2.1 – Level2
Chapter 3 – Level1
I hope you got some idea how we define levels to our Headings in Word. Now all We have to do is assigned levels and styles to our heading. That will be displayed in our table of contents.
How to assign Levels ?
To assign levels, select the heading, From Main Menu > References
Then in upper right side you’ll find a button “Add Text “. Click that button you’ll see the drop down list, from there select the level you desired. I am going to use the above example here. So I would select the Chapter 1 and then click on Add Text and select Level 1.
Similarly I would select the Chapter 1.1 and assign it Level 2.
Similarly I would select the Chapter 1.1.1 and assign it Level 3.
Now, Assigning Levels greater then 3 is a bit tricky. For that we have to select the multiple headings, and then omit the assignment of Level4 and leave assignment to only those heading where we require them.
To select multiple headings hold down ctrl key and highlight the headings, on which you want to assign levels.
After you’ve finished assigning levels to all heading, Now, we are ready to generate table of contents.
Place the cursor where you want to generate Table of Contents. Then
From Main Menu select References, Click on “Table of Contents” which is located on top-right section of the ribbon bar. Then click on “Insert Table of Contents.” Finally you’ll have table of contents which is generated automatically by Microsoft Word 2007. Now you’ve full control over the table of contents, whenever the heading gets changed to next page, then you can simply update the table of contents page by clicking the Update Table Icon .
Benefits of Generation of Automatic Table of Contents
· Automatic Update of Page Numbers
One Reply to “[How To] How to generate Table of Contents in Microsoft Word 2007”
Very useful information. Keep it up. It surely helps to professional people and students for generating their case reports.
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