Lesson 15: How to Create a Table of Contents in Word /en/word-tips/modifying-page-numbers-in-word/content/ How to create a table of contents in Word Imagine you're working with a really long document in Microsoft Word, like an academic paper or a big report. Depending on the project, it might be dozens or even hundreds of pages long! When a document is this large, it can be difficult to remember which page has what information. Fortunately, Word allows you to insert a table of contents, making it easy to organize and navigate your document.
A table of contents is just like the list of chapters at the beginning of a book. It lists each section in the document and the page number where that section begins. A really basic table of contents might look like this. You could create a table of contents manually—typing the section names and page numbers—but it would take a lot of work.
And if you ever decide to rearrange your sections or add more information, you'll have to update everything all over again. However, with the right formatting, Word can create and update a table of contents automatically. We'll use Word 2013 to show you how to create a table of contents, but you can use the exact same method in Word 2010 or Word 2007. Step 1: Apply heading styles If you've already read our lesson, you know they're an easy way to add professional text formatting to different parts of your document.
![Page Page](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125351686/568098319.png)
![Page Page](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125351686/247947765.jpg)
And since you published the document as pdf, the path for the Microsoft Word document is no longer valid. Quite a valid reason for that sad page. Our other Table of Contents items (not coming from text boxes) work well since they are relative links.
Styles also serve another important purpose: adding a hidden layer of organization and structure to your document. If you apply a heading style, you're telling Word that you've started a new part of your document. When you insert the table of contents, it will create a section for each heading. In the table of contents above, each chapter uses a heading style, so there are four sections. To apply a heading style, select the text you want to format, then choose the desired heading in the Styles group on the Home tab.