Table of Contents

Heading 1: What is a table of contents?	2

Heading 2: Ways to mark text to include in a table of contents	2

Heading 2.1: Built-in heading styles	2

Heading 2.2: Outline-level formatting	2

Heading 2.3: Custom heading styles	3

Heading 2.4: TC fields	3

Screenshot in OpenOffice 1.1:

Heading 1: What is a table of contents?

A table of contents, or TOC, is a list of topics in a document. Generally, it includes each topic's page number (in a document) or a link to the section that the topic is in (on the Web). You can use a TOC to give readers an overview of your topics or to help them find the starting page or section for your topics.

In Word, you have many different options for creating a TOC. You choose where to put the TOC in your document or Web page, what the content and formatting of each entry will be, and whether to include page numbers. For example, a teacher might want to include a table of contents in a class syllabus or training documents so that students have an outline of the class and know where to find a particular topic. Students may need to include a TOC in a research paper. Or, a class may have a Web site for sharing information and tracking homework assignments, and they may want to add a TOC to the home page to make finding things easier.

A TOC in a document is made up of a list of topics or headings, tab leader characters (solid, dotted, or dashed lines that fill the space used by the tab character), and page numbers. The last two items are optional. On a Web page, hyperlinks replace the page numbers.

Heading 2: Ways to mark text to include in a table of contents

When you insert or update a TOC, Word looks through the document for all the text you marked. It lists the marked text in order, determines the TOC level for the text, and determines the page number that each item is on. There are several ways of marking text that you want to include in the TOC. You can use Word's built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on), outline-level formatting, your own custom styles, TC fields, or a combination of these. Let's explore each of these options for marking text.

Heading 2.1: Built-in heading styles

A heading style is a combination of formatting options (like font type, size, and color) applied to a heading in your document. Word has nine different built-in heading styles, Heading 1 through Heading 9.

To see the style of your text, highlight some text in your document and then look at the Style box , located on the Formatting toolbar. If you use one of Word's nine built-in heading styles to format the headings you want to include in your TOC, you can choose the TOC level for each of the heading styles in the Table of Contents Options dialog box to include them in your TOC.

Heading 2.2: Outline-level formatting

An outline-level format is formatting that you can use to assign a hierarchical level (Level 1 through Level 9) to paragraphs in your document. This formatting is not visible; applying Level 1 outline-level formatting to a paragraph does not change the visible formatting (alignment, font color, and so on). Every paragraph in your document has an outline-level format applied, either body text (no outline level) or a level (Level 1, Level 2, and so on).

By selecting a heading that you want to include in your TOC and then selecting a level from the Outline Level box, you can apply outline levels to mark the heading to be included in your TOC without changing the appearance of your heading.

Note The built-in heading styles have corresponding outline-level formatting assigned. That is, the style Heading 1 has Level 1 outline-level formatting, Heading 2 has Level 2 outline-level formatting, and so on.

Heading 2.3: Custom heading styles

A custom heading style is simply one that you have created yourself. If you use your own custom heading styles to format the headings you want in your TOC, you can choose the TOC level for these heading styles in the Table of Contents Options dialog box to include them in your TOC.

Heading 2.4: TC fields

A TC field, or table entry field, is a special code designated by the letters TC within curly bracket characters, like this: {TC}. It instructs Word to insert the text within the code into a table of contents. To include text that occurs in the middle of a paragraph, you can insert a TC field that contains the text you want. (Although it's possible to mark a portion of a paragraph with a heading style, Microsoft Word includes this text in the TOC only if the marked text is at the beginning of the paragraph.)

You can also use a TC field to further customize your table of contents. For example, you can use TC fields to omit page numbers from part of the TOC by adding a switch (\) in the TC field for a given entry (see A note about using TC field switches).

To mark a table of contents entry with a TC field, select the text that you want to appear in the table of contents and then press ALT+SHIFT+O. This displays the Mark Table of Contents Entry dialog box

2012-09-06T16:23:34