Once your text is all marked out, place your cursor where you want the table of contents to appear (normally at the beginning of your document). Then, click the Insert menu, choose Reference, and click Index and Tables. With that command, the Index and Tables dialog will open. Of course, we want to focus on the Table of Contents tab:

 

 

The first two boxes in this window will show you a preview of how your table of contents will look on paper and on the Web. Under each preview, we have a set of options.

 

-          Web Preview: Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers

-          Print Preview:

o        Show page numbers: Choose to include or exclude page numbers from your table of contents.

o        Right align page numbers: When checked, this will align your page numbers with the right margin. If this is unchecked, page numbers will be right beside each heading.

o        Tab leader: Choose which character separates the headings and the page numbers.

 

There are also a set of general options:

-          Format: Change how your table of contents looks.

-          Show Levels: Choose how many levels are displayed in your table of contents.

 

At the bottom of the dialog, we have buttons to shown the outlining toolbar and to modify options for our table of contents. Let’s look at the dialog that appears when you click Options:

 

 

This box lets you control what Word builds its table of contents from. The first checkbox is Styles. This portion contains a list of available styles. Next to this list is a column of text boxes, marked TOC level. You can use this column to indicate what level you want that style to represent. For example, if you want text marked with Heading 1 style to represent level 4 in your table of contents, you would type the number 4 in the Heading 1 text box. You can combine heading styles and custom styles to create your own markers.

 

The last two checkboxes allow outline levels or table entry fields to be used to build your table of contents. At the bottom, we have options to Reset these entries to their default, save our changes and close the dialog box (by clicking OK), or to Cancel these changes.

 

At any time after inserting the table of contents, you can place your cursor in it and go back to the Index and Tables dialog box (by clicking the Insert menu, choosing Reference, and clicking Index and Tables) to modify your table of contents’ options.