⭐ Beginner Level

In Word a table of contents (TOC) automatically includes the major headings in your document. Word provides templated automated tables of contents that are quite handy to use. We'll look at this automated TOC in this article.

Note: You can add a custom table of contents which is explored in this intermediate-level article: Custom table of contents.

Word's automated TOC are useful because they provide a link directly to the location of the entries within them, take a look:

How to insert a table of contents

To add a table of contents go to Reference > Table of Contents.

You'll get a drop down menu which has a few templated tables of contents.

Click the top one Automatic Table 1 and a TOC is inserted where you had the insertion point:

If you don't have any headings you'll get this message:

And a blank table of contents that looks like this:

Remove a table of contents

If you have a table of contents that spans a whole page or more it can be tricky to select all of it to then delete it. Instead there's a button that can do it for you. Go to Reference > Table of Contents > Remove Table of Contents:

How to update a table of contents

If you add, edit or delete a heading you'll need to update your table of contents to reflect the change. Even though it's called an 'Automatic table of contents' they don't update automatically in Word unfortunately. You need to update TOCs manually.

To do this go to the top of the TOC and click on it. You'll see an Update Table button at the top, click this.

A window pops up with the choice to update just the page number or the whole TOC. I'd always recommend selecting the whole TOC to capture everything. Click OK when done:

The table of contents will then update. Here's a demonstration:

Understanding heading levels

You might notice on some TOCs that some entries are indented:

This is due to heading levels where a heading has a certain style applied that has a heading level assigned to it. For the above example TOC here's what the headings looks like:

Note how the fourth level heading doesn't show. An automated TOC only shows the top 3 headling levels.

Where do I find heading levels and how do you set them?

Go to Home > Styles and click the far right button:

This expands the Styles Gallery to show all the default styles for your document (if you're using a template you might have custom styles already set up). For a blank default page you'll see heading styles like this:

Note: You might just see Heading 1 and Heading 2 at first. If you apply those heading styles the other levels tend to appear afterwards.

Where to now?

More on tables of contents are explored in the intermediate version of this article such as:

Table of content options
Table entry fields - 'TC' fields - to add anything into a TOC
Modifying TOC styles

If you're wanting to insert a custom table of contents have a look at this intermediate-level article: Custom table of contents

In this article:

Using a table of contents in Word
Inserting a table of contents
Automated table of contents
Manual table of contents
Custom table of contents
Deleting a table of contents
Updating a table of contents

Using a table of contents in Word

A table of contents (TOC) in Word lists headings in the document much like you'd find in a book or long form publication like a report. By default the headings in a TOC are also hyperlinks which will take you directly to the location of a heading when you hold down Ctrl and click on one.

Inserting a table of contents

Go to References and then select the Table of Contents drop down. From there you can choose which style of TOC to insert.

Automated table of contents

Automated table of contents styles 1 and 2 require you to have headings, or more specifically heading styles, in place in your document. If you insert one of these without headings it will insert a blank TOC with a warning:

A note on automated heading levels

When you have a document with several heading levels, one point that catches a lot of people out is that a TOC only includes the top three default heading styles i.e. Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3. Take this example with four heading levels:

If we add an automated table of contents to this document we get this:

Note how heading level 4 isn't included, no other level after 3 is; the reason behind this is to prevent the TOC becoming too granular and long. Typically a table of contents is to help readers get to main sections of a document/publication.

Manual table of contents

The manual style lets you enter in your own headings and page numbers into the TOC irrespective of what actual headings you have in your document. These can be useful for short or non-structured documents with custom layouts where the content is minimal and/or doesn't rely on headings so much, such as a program, brochure or booklet, a portfolio or a one-page newsletter for example.

Be careful to make sure your custom headings match up correctly with your content. That goes for the page numbering too as it's all manual. The manual option can be quite labour-intensive, especially with the indentation of the different levels; you may want to add custom tab stops for the different levels.

Custom table of contents

Custom tables of contents are explored in this article: Custom table of contents

Deleting a table of contents

Either go to References > Table of contents > Remove table of contents or delete the TOC on the page manually with backspace or delete.

Updating a table of contents

Adding, editing or removing headings requires manually updating your table of contents even if you're using the 'Automatic table of contents'. At the top of the TOC click on it and the option Update Table will appear above, click this.

A small dialog appears where you an update just the page numbers or the whole TOC. Always choose the later to capture any changes. Click OK when done:

The TOC then updates like this:

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Table of contents