Marked Entries for TOC

[BK]

Using Word 2007 and want to mark some specific phrases within my document so
that they appear in the table of contents. "Help" tells me that I can
select the text I want to include and click the ADD TEXT option. When I do
this, however, the style of the text is changed to match a heading style
based on the level I choose for this particular entry.

I do not want to change the style of the text within the document. I only
want to mark it so that it will show up in the table of contents. Is there
a step I am missing that will mark the text but NOT change the font size or
style?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can use TC fields as in previous versions. Select the text you want
included and press Alt+Shift+O. Choose the appropriate level. In the TOC
Options dialog, check the box for Table Entry Fields.

 

[BK]

Suzanne

Thanks for the information. I'll try it tomorrow when I am at my Office
2007 machine. Any reason why the ADD TEXT button in the references portion
of the ribbon would change the style of the font within the document?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I haven't used these new features in Word 2007, but the only way to "add
text" to a TOC is to either mark an entry with a TC field or format the
paragraph with a heading style that will automatically be included. When you
apply the heading style, you apply its formatting. If you don't like that
formatting, you can modify the style.

What you're seeing is part of the continuing effort of MS to dumb down Word
and make it "easier to use." Ah, users don't know how to create a TOC in a
Word document because they don't use heading styles. So we'll encourage them
to use heading styles by applying them automatically when they tell us they
want this text in the TOC. This is the same reasoning whereby paragraphs
formatted like headings were AutoFormatted as headings and paragraphs meant
to be Body Text suddenly appeared in the Document Map, much to users'
confusion and consternation.

The bottom line is that, if you want control over your document, it's
sometimes better to use old-fashioned methods and not take the easy way out!

 

[BK]

So I'm not the only one going crazy, huh? I don't mind using "the
old-fashioned methods," but they seem to make it impossible to figure out
those "old-fashioned methods" without the help of people like you. I'm
eager to try the Alt+Shift+O method tomorrow at my 2007 workstation.

 

[BK]

Just wanted to let you know that I tried several of the options provided to
me for marking my own entries for a table of contents. The one that seems
to work the best (i.e. doesn't mess with document formatting) seems to be
the TC field option. My table of contents FINALLY came out looking the way
I wanted it to, and the document remains untouched.

Thanks so much for all your help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Glad you finally got it sorted. Sometimes you have to be very devious to get
the TOC you require.

 

[BK]

Final solution: Because I got so tired of the complex gyrations to get text
marked for a table of contents, I ended up opening my document in Word 2003.
I was able to easily mark my text entries and create my TOC. When I opened
the document in Word 2007, everything seems to be okay. I was able to
update the TOC page number as the document was edited.

Is there a good place to submit a "suggestion" to Microsoft that they return
the TOC functionality to earlier versions???

 

[BK]

I should have added that I am making the switch to 2007 okay. The learning
curve is steeper than I anticipated, but I'm not complaining. Just some
things like this TOC text marking have definitely taken a step backwards.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I haven't actually tried it, but I get the impression that the option to
"Mark text for the TOC" does something different from either just applying a
heading style OR inserting a TC field, either of which is reasonably
straightforward.