Office X for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

242 office x for macintosh: the missing manual

Creating a Table of Contents

Word’s Table of Contents (TOC) feature shines in its versatility. Once you’ve built a

table of contents in Word, you can use it to navigate your document (just as you

might with the Document Map); you can custom format it to get just the look you

want; you can save yourself the task of updating page numbers if you add or delete

text from your document (which can be a major pain); and you can use it as a Web

site map (because in Online view, a Word Table of Contents is automatically

hyperlinked).

TOC the Easiest Way: Using Built-in Headings

If you have a well-organized document, and you’ve used Word’s outliner or one of

its built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on) to introduce each new

topic, Word’s Table of Contents feature was made for you. Go directly to step 1

below.

If you wrote your document without headings, on the other hand, insert them be-

fore creating the table. (Use Word’s built-in heading styles, as illustrated on page

143.) Be descriptive when you design the headings; instead of just “Chapter 10” or

“Advanced Techniques,” use “Chapter 10: Underwater Architecture” or “Advanced

Card-Counting.”

When you’re ready to smack a table of contents on the first page of your master-

work, proceed as follows:

1. Click where you want the TOC to begin.

To put the TOC on the first page, click at the very beginning of the document.

(You can also insert it after a title page or introduction.)

2. Choose Insert→Index and Tables→Table of Contents tab.

You should now be staring at the Index and Tables dialog box shown in Figure

6-21.

3. Choose a style in the Formats box, as described in Figure 6-21.

If none of the format styles thrills you, choose “From template” and see “TOC

the Harder Way: Using Other Styles” on page 244.

4. Decide how many levels you want to show, using the “Show levels” control.

For example, you may want your table of contents to show only chapter titles; in

that case, choose 1 in the “Show levels” box. If you’ve divided your document

into many levels of detail, each with its own heading level, you may want to show

only the first two or three levels to keep the table from getting too long. (The

table of contents in this book, for example, shows chapter titles and the first-level

subject headings.)

Creating a

Table of Contents

chapter 6: advanced word processing 243

5. Format the page numbers.

Most printed tables of contents include page numbers, of course, but if you’re

preparing a document for the Web where page numbering is irrelevant, then

turn off “Show page numbers.”

If you elect to use page numbering, you can also indicate whether you want them

to be right-aligned (as in the Preview window in Figure 6-21) and what style of

Tab leader you want (the dots, spaces, or lines that connect each title with its page

number). The Preview window in Figure 6-21 shows a dotted line, but the “Tab

leader” menu offers several other choices.

6. Click OK.

Figure 6-21:

Top: The “From template”

format uses the styles in

the current document

template and results in a

consistent appearance

with the rest of your

document. (See page 141

for more on styles.) Click

on each one and look in

the Preview window;

choose the one that

makes the best

impression.

Bottom: The Options

dialog box lets you build

your table of contents

from styles you’ve used in

your document other

than Heading 1, Heading

2, and so on. Here, the

Caption style is being

added to the list so that

captioned pictures will

appear in the table of

contents.

Creating a

Table of Contents