How to Insert a Table of Contents in Word

Posted on by Summa Lai

For Word for Office 365 and Word for Microsoft 365.

A table of contents in Word is based on the headings in your document. Click the below link to watch an intro video.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RE1TwVJ?pid=ocpVideo0-innerdiv-oneplayer&jsapi=true&postJsllMsg=true&maskLevel=20&market=en-us

Create the table of contents

  1. Put your cursor where you want to add the table of contents.
  2. Go to References > Table of Contents. and choose an automatic style.Create a table of contents
  3. If you make changes to your document that affect the table of contents, update the table of contents by right-clicking the table of contents and choosing Update Field.

To update your table of contents manually, see Update a table of contents.

If you have missing entries

Missing entries often happen because headings aren’t formatted as headings.

  1. For each heading that you want in the table of contents, select the heading text.
  2. Go to Home > Styles, and then choose Heading 1.Add a heading
  3. Update your table of contents.

To update your table of contents manually, see Update a table of contents.

Get the learning guide

For a hands-on guide that steps you through the process of creating a table of contents, download our Table of Contents tutorial. Or, in desktop Word, go to File > New, and search for table of contents.

Ref: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-a-table-of-contents-882e8564-0edb-435e-84b5-1d8552ccf0c0