5 Helpful Tips for Table of Contents in Your Word Document

In the following article, there are 5 tips which could be useful for you while dealing with table of contents in your Word document.

To create a table of contents can make our Word document look organized. Meanwhile, it’s like a document map, telling people what and where the contents are. Honestly, inserting a table of contents is relatively easy, but the tricky things always lie at places where you barely aware of. Therefore, we list 5 possible problems you may run into in the future, and also their solutions.

Issue 1: Incomplete Table of Contents

Sometimes, if your Word document contains many different heading levels, you may find they are not all showing on the table of contents.

This is something about the “Show levels”. Here are the steps to fix:

1. Firstly, when you go to “Reference” and click “Table of Contents” to insert one, you will first see the “Table of Contents” dialog box. Find the “Show levels” spin box, and change the value in it. By default, the number is “3”. Here we set the value at “9”.
2. Or you can click “Options” button on the right-down corner to open the dialog box.
3. There, you can change or enter numbers in text boxes after styles. The number you assigned for the style represents its level, which shall reflect in the table of contents.
4. Lastly, remember to click “OK” in both dialog boxes.

Issue 2: Long Subtitle Showing as 2 Content Items

There are situations when you will have long subtitle or a subtitle which you intentionally need them go to the next line.

Under such circumstances, you may feel quite natural to press the “Enter” key at the position where you finish the first line. However, the result can be far less satisfying. The title is deemed as 2 paragraphs, so there are 2 content items, such as below:

The solution is easy. Press “Shift+ Enter” instead of “Enter” only. Then here is what you will achieve:

Issue 3: About Update

Certainly, changes and revisions will be made all the time to your Word document. Unfortunately, the table of contents will not automatically update themselves. To avoid being embarrassed, you need to remember as well as knowing how to update it. Following are 3 ways you may take:

1. First way is to click on the table of contents. Then right click and choose “Update Field” on the list.

And in the “Update Table of Contents” dialog box, choose an option accordingly, and then click “OK”.

2. The second way is to click “References” and then click “Update Table”. Next follow steps in first way to finish the job.
3. The third way is to click on the table of contents and then press “F9” to open the “Update Table of Contents” dialog box. Next choose an updating option and click “OK”.

Issue 4: Odd Codes

Have you ever had a table of contents suddenly changed to some weird codes? Don’t freak out. It can happen sometimes. And the solutions depend on the specific case you have.

1. Firstly, if you entire table looks like this:

You just need to press “Alt+ F9” to bring the normal table back.

2. And if only some items start appearing different, such as below:

You should right click on the specific item and choose “Toggle Field Codes” there.

Issue 5: Taking Seconds to Scroll back to Table of Contents

Usually, we are likely to place the table of contents on the first page of our document. We can quickly click the Hyperlink on the table to jump to the exact location we want. Yet, speaking of going back, the way is a little bit old-schooled.

Actually, there is an awesome feature just cropped for this demand.

1. Click “File” tab and then Click “Options” to open the “Word Options” dialog box.
2. Then click “Quick Access Toolbar”.
3. And choose “Commands Not in the Ribbon”.
4. Next find and click “Go to TOC” command.
5. Then click “Add”.
6. Finally, click “OK”.

Next time you can switch back to the table immediately as you click the command.

In Case Word Fails You

Word is already stuffed with many features and functions. It is in the process of using them to fulfill our task that Word is highly possible to fail our expectation at time. Instead of being panic and losing your head after tragedy occurs, you need to get a worked Word error repair product.

Author Introduction:

Vera Chen is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including damaged Excel xls file repair tool and pdf repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com