Table of contents

Before you insert the table of contents, you should apply styles of the Heading type to each heading that is contained in the document. For example, if your document contains chapters, sections, and subsections, apply Heading 1 style to chapter headings, Heading 2 style to section headings, and Heading 3 style to subsection headings.

To insert a table of contents, follow these steps:

1.Place the cursor at the position in the text before which you want to insert the table of contents.

2.On the Insert tab, click  Table of contents. When working in macOS, you can also run the Insert > Table of contents command from the command menu.

By default, the table of contents is always separated from the rest of the document by a page break. Page breaks can be deleted if needed.

Specify the title of the table of contents manually.

When editing the table of contents, you can do the following:

•Add or remove table of contents levels.

•Change the heading styles for the table of contents levels.

•Hide or display page numbers in the table of contents.

To edit the table of contents, do one of the following:

•Left-click the table of contents and on the Home tab, in the Contents group, click  Edit.

•Right-click the table of contents and run the Edit table of contents command from the context menu.

The Edit table of contents window opens.

After changing the table of contents properties, close this window. To do this, click outside the window or click the button in the window title bar.

Add a level of table of contents

The table of contents can contain up to 9 levels of headings. By default, it consists of three levels. The first level of the table of contents is the headings to which the Heading 1 style is applied, the second level is the headings to which the Heading 2 style is applied, and the third level is the headings to which the Heading 3 style is applied.

In general, a table of contents includes no more than five levels of headings. When you add the fourth and fifth levels of the table of contents, the preset Heading 4 and Heading 5 styles are automatically selected for them, respectively.

If you need to add more than five levels of headings to your table of contents, create styles manually and apply them to the desired headings. Then add the table of contents levels that will be generated from these headings.

To add a level of table of contents, follow these steps:

1.In the Edit table of contents window, click  New level. The new table of contents level line will be displayed in the level list.

2.Select from the drop-down list the heading style from which you want this table of contents level to be generated, or leave the default style selected.

Change the heading style for the table of contents level

You can create levels of tables of contents from headings that have the preset Heading 1–Heading 5 styles applied to them, or from headings that have manually created styles applied to them.

To change the style of the headings that are used to create a table of contents level, follow these steps:

1.In the Edit table of contents window, in the line of the desired table of contents level, expand the style drop-down list.

2.Select from the drop-down list the style of headings from which to generate this table of contents level.

Delete a level of the table of contents

If necessary, you can reduce the number of table of contents levels. For example, a table of contents that has four levels can be converted to a two-level table of contents. To do this, delete the fourth and third levels of the table of contents.

Table of contents levels can be deleted starting from the last level in the list.

To delete the last level of the table of contents, in the Edit table of contents window, click the button to the right of that level.

Hide or display page numbers

By default, each heading in the table of contents is labeled with the page number on which it is located. Page numbers are calculated automatically.

To hide page numbers in the table of contents, in the Edit table of contents window, clear the Display page numbers checkbox.

To return to displaying page numbering, select this checkbox.

Default formatting is applied to the table of contents. If necessary, you can change the font and paragraph properties for the table of contents.

The table of contents is formatted in the same way as the main text of the document.

To format the table of contents text, select it. To do this, left-click the table of contents.

To delete the table of contents, do one of the following:

1.Select the table of contents.

2.Delete it in one of the following ways:

•On the Toolbar, in the Edit section, click  Delete.

•Right-click the table of contents and select Delete from the context menu.

•Press Backspace (Windows, Linux) or Delete (Windows, Linux, macOS).