Although for many it may seem simple, some people do not usually know how to handle Word tools, which tends to be of the utmost importance in many office jobs. They may require experience in programs such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint, so it is very important to know how to manage and use their tools.
Among all the advantages that they offer you, mainly Word, is the creator of tables of contents , which will be very helpful when creating or developing reports.
Index( )
- What do you need to do in order to create a table of contents?
- How do you add an automatic table of contents in a Word document?
- In the desktop version
- Working on Google Docs
- How to insert a custom table of contents to your liking?
- What is the way to update the page numbers or the whole content of the table?
- How to navigate your entire Word document with the help of the table of contents?
What do you need to do in order to create a table of contents?
Creating a table of contents in Word is very simple, and it is not necessary to meet many other requirements, just having Microsoft Word installed on your computer will suffice. In addition, of course, you must have the information or content developed in the Word document so that, when creating the table of contents, it knows how to organize your information.
Likewise, because this program includes several different table of contents models, it is important that you are clear about where and how you want the table to be established in the document.
How do you add an automatic table of contents in a Word document?
The table of contents of the Microsoft Word platform will help you organize each of the points of the document or report, either with numbers or letters, so that each of them is easy to find on the pages where they are. It may sound a bit complicated, but adding an automatic table of contents in a Word document is very simple, whether you use the desktop version or from the Google Docs platform.
In the desktop version
If you use the desktop version of Word , adding a table of contents to your papers and reports is very easy to do, just follow these steps:
- Go to the Word document where you want to insert the automatic table of contents and place the pointer over the place where you want to place it.
- Now, you must click on the ‘References’ option, located on the toolbar, then on ‘Table of Contents’ and choose the type of table you want to insert.
- Finally, the table of contents will be added to the Word document successfully, as long as the document is in order.
However, if an error occurred at the end of these steps, you should verify that the titles are framed with some style of titles in the ‘Title Gallery’, so that the title table knows how to organize them.
Working on Google Docs
On the other hand, if your preference is to work from the Google document platform , there is nothing to worry about, since it also offers the option of inserting an automatic table of contents. Therefore, below, we will explain step by step how to add a table of contents to your documents from Google in a simple way:
- Enter your Google document with all the information in it and click on the place where you want to insert the table of contents.
- Go to the toolbar and select the ‘Insert’ option, where a menu will be displayed, there you will click on ‘Index’ and choose the table of contents layout of your choice.
- Upon completion of the steps above, the table of contents will automatically be addedto the document in the layout you’ve chosen.
As in Word desktop, if you have had any problems with the table of contents , you should verify that each of the titles has a ‘title style’ established by the platform.
How to insert a custom table of contents to your liking?
Now that you have learned how to insert an automatic table of contents to your Word document, it is common that you want to customize it. The default tables of contents for Word or google documents are usually simple and basic, therefore, many users choose to edit and change it to their liking.
On the other hand, some people don’t know how to customize the table of contents, however, doing so is very easy and you can adjust all its features as you wish.
To do this, you just have to enter Word and go to the toolbar again, there we select the ‘References’ option and follow the ‘Table of Contents’ section. Now, you will be able to see that a menu will be displayed, where you must click on ‘Custom Table of Contents’ and finally configure or modify the characteristics you want.
What is the way to update the page numbers or the whole content of the table?
If you have already inserted the table of contents to your document in Word, but later you have been adding more information to your document, you may want to modify the number of pages shown in the table. However, to solve this you can also use a tool that the program has and is very easy to use, which updates the table of contents.
To update your table of contents, be it the pages or the content of the table, you only need to go to ‘References’ in the toolbar and finally click on ‘Update table’ , so that it is renewed with the new information.
How to navigate your entire Word document with the help of the table of contents?
After having added your table of contents to your document and having included all the necessary information , you will surely want to check point by point that everything is correct, for these occasions the table of contents is usually very useful.
Thanks to the efficiency of the table of contents you can get to any title of the document just by pressing the ‘Ctrl’ key at the same time that you click on any of the titles of the table of contents.
With this tool you can navigate through the entire document with just one click thanks to the table of contents, no matter how long the document is. However, for this to work, each of the headings in the Word document must have a set heading style.
