Creating Table of Contents

[Brenda]

I have a document that was created by someone else. This document has a
"manual" table of contents that was created by the other person.

As I will be making a lot of changes to this document, my hope is to have
Word2000 create a table of contents "automatically".

What is the easiest way to do this? When I do the Insert / Index and Tables
/ Table of Contents, I get the error message "No table of contents entries
found."

I realize I must have to "mark" entries somehow, to have them added to the
TOC, but I have no idea how to do this.

I would prefer not to have to change the font (look) of the document as it
currently exists, unless necessary.

As a related but second question: I also want to create cross-references, as
the original compiler of this 48 page document as vast references that say
"For more information, see page 3" and "See page 26". As I change the
document, the information that used to be on page 3 very well will be on a
different page.

How do I create cross references so that as page numbers change, the "See
page xx" will automatically change?

Thank you in advance for assistance.
~Brenda

 

[Rob Schneider]

I have a document that was created by someone else. This document has a
"manual" table of contents that was created by the other person.

As I will be making a lot of changes to this document, my hope is to have
Word2000 create a table of contents "automatically".

What is the easiest way to do this? When I do the Insert / Index and Tables
/ Table of Contents, I get the error message "No table of contents entries
found."

I realize I must have to "mark" entries somehow, to have them added to the
TOC, but I have no idea how to do this.

This well described in Help. I think best way is to use Heading styles
and mark each heading bit of text.

I would prefer not to have to change the font (look) of the document as it
currently exists, unless necessary.

Just define the the format of each heading style to be as it is now.
(You will probably find errors in the format now as hard-wiring heading
formatting is often not done correctly. your work should improve the
document)

As a related but second question: I also want to create cross-references, as
the original compiler of this 48 page document as vast references that say
"For more information, see page 3" and "See page 26". As I change the
document, the information that used to be on page 3 very well will be on a
different page.

How do I create cross references so that as page numbers change, the "See
page xx" will automatically change?

Read about cross references in Help. You can refer to the contents
and/or pages of various types of things, including Headings (made as
mentioned above) or to bookmarks that are set by hand.

 

[Brenda]

This well described in Help. I think best way is to use Heading styles

and mark each heading bit of text.

I will go back and re-re-read.... I read HELP multiple times before posting
my question, but did not understand MS Help....

 

[Rob Schneider]

I will go back and re-re-read.... I read HELP multiple times before posting
my question, but did not understand MS Help....





cross-references, as

Well, others may well chip in here to simplify it even more. The help
files were written by professional writings spending lots of time on
it... Can't really do much better without spending an equal amount of
time. There are some FAQ's on the Word MVP site also, I think.

Just give it a go. Experiment on a copy of the file or on a simple
empty doc that you fill up with text to experiment.

1. Identify document components (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Body
Text).
2. Assign the styles to those compoents.
3. Format the styles (to format the document)
4. Insert a TOC based no heading styes.

That's it. The only work is No. 2 which is a one-time thing. I write
doc's assigning styles as I go, so it's not added work. Authors should
do this as a matter of course.

 

[Brenda]

Many thanks, Rob. I'll start with an empty doc and get the hang of it that
way, then progress to the doc that has already been created.

Regards,
Brenda

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi Brenda,

This says very little different from Rob Scheider's post (I think) but gives
some different detail. Strongly suggest experimenting on a copy (perhaps
partial) of the actual document rather than starting with a blank document,
it will let you work out all the particular variables for that document,
and you can always delete the experimental copy when you have it all figured
out. But personal choice.

This method/Rob's method will teach you about styles, and if you plan on
formatting many long documents, you will find them a godsend.

See also these links to understand styles more:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/Styles.asp and a supplemented
version of the same article, http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm

Below is a repost of some directions I wrote a while back. Read the entire
thing before doing anything, but experiment with it before posting back, as
some things will make more sense when you actually do them.

I will go back and re-re-read.... I read HELP multiple times before posting
my question, but did not understand MS Help....

***Make a copy of your document, for safety's safe, and do all this on the
copy.*** Delete the entire manual table of contents from it--the generated
TOC will replace it. This is much simpler than it sounds, by the way, and
once you get the hang of it, it will all go very smoothly. I'm not an
expert, but this should give you the basics and then you can customize as
desired, posting back if necessary.

I assume your doc (contents page deleted) looks something like this:

TITLE ONE RE XYZ

Content re xyz


TITLE TWO RE ABC

Content re abc

Apply the style Heading 1 to those titles, all of them (select title, then
Format | Style | [select heading one] Apply, then go through the doc just
redoing previous action). Then tell word to create a TOC--Insert | Index and
Tables | Table of Contents. I think you want to have your cursor at the
beginning of the document when you do this, as it will insert the TOC there.
Pick any template you prefer.

Okay, now you probably feel like you have made your document completely ugly
and you hate the way it looks. Go into Format | Styles, select Heading 1,
and click Modify. Using the drop-down Format menu, change the style Heading
1 so that you like the way it looks (there are six options, play around with
them to get the hang of what styles can do). If you are not happy with the
way the TOC looks, change the style TOC 1 so that you like it. (Important:
in the Modify dialog, click"add to template" to keep your changes in new
documents but do not click "automatically update" as that can mess you up
later) When you change the style in the dialog box, all titles formatted in
that style will automatically change as well.

FYI: You can do a lot with styles. For instance, if your text sections have
subheadings, you can apply the style Heading 2 to those and the TOC will
also pick them up, and write them in style TOC 2. What the TOC picks up is
outline level, however, noted in the style description as Level 1, etc. You
could create a duplicate of Heading 1, but without Level 1 set, so that the
title for your Contents Page looks the same as all your other titles but the
TOC doesn't pick it up. If you have page breaks between each section, you
can set Heading 1 to have a page break before, and delete the manual page
breaks that you put in.

Hope that helps--it really is easier than it sounds, but be sure to work on
a copy of your doc.

DM