It is very easy to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word. The biggest advantage of the created table of contents is the ability to automatically update the titles of individual chapters and page numbers after making any changes to your document! Sounds good? Let’s start!

1. First, we need to style our headings (the titles of our chapters). We will do it very easily: we mark the title of our first chapter (in our example the first chapter is entitled “INTRODUCTION”) and go to the Home tab. In the upper right part of the screen you will see a list of available styles. We choose (click) the Heading 1 style (or for the English version: Heading 1). After doing this, the appearance of our header will change! We’re on our way to creating our table of contents 🙂
   
2. We do the same with the other chapter titles in our document.
3. If there are subsections in our document, we must distinguish them in an appropriate way in our table of contents. To do this, proceed in the same way as in point 1: select the title of our subsection (in our example, the subsection is entitled “Subchapter 3.1”) and go to the Main Tools tab. On the list of styles, select (click) the Heading 2 style.
   
4. When all chapters and subchapters in the document have been marked, we can move on to the main part of our task, i.e. implementation of the table of contents! Place the cursor on an empty page of the document, go to the References tab, on the left side of the screen click on the Table of Contents icon, and select the style of the automatic table (in our example, style No. 1).
   
5. Voilà! Our table of contents has been automatically created.
   
6. Now, when changes are made to the document (added text, changed names of chapters or subchapters) it will be child’s play to update the table of contents. We will limit ourselves to placing the cursor anywhere in our table of contents and pressing the F9 key on the keyboard or clicking the right mouse button and selecting the Update List option.
   From the list of available options, we choose whether we want to update only the page numbers (we choose this option when we added or removed a fragment of the text without interfering with the naming of chapters) or whether we update the entire table of contents (important when we also changed the titles of chapters or subsections). The option to update the entire table is recommended 🙂
   

Glossary

Microsoft Word – is a text editor, one of the programs included in the Microsoft Office suite. The most popular package of programs for creating documents, spreadsheets, multimedia presentations, databases and e-mail. This is a paid program. More information available at: dobreprogramy.pl

Style – formatting (appearance and color settings). The use of fixed styles allows you to work in a much faster way (you do not need to set the size and color of the font each time)

Chapter – as the name suggests: its purpose is to separate the most important parts of the document. The chapter takes precedence over the subchapter.

Subchapter – “smaller chapter” allows you to divide and organize the content of the document, especially when the parent chapter is very complex and extensive in content.

Cursor – a blinking black line on the monitor screen indicating where the document is being edited.

Icon – a small graphic symbol representing a folder, file, program, or command. Widely used in all computer systems and programs.