To create a table of contents (TOC) in Microsoft Word, follow these steps:

1. Apply Heading Styles to Your Document

• Select the text you want to appear as a section heading.
• Go to the Home tab.
• In the Styles group, click on Heading 1 for main sections.
• For subsections, use Heading 2 , and for further sub-levels, use Heading 3 (and so on).
  This step is crucial because Word uses these heading styles to generate the TOC automatically

2. Insert the Table of Contents

• Place your cursor where you want the TOC to appear (usually at the beginning of the document).
• Go to the References tab.
• Click Table of Contents.
• Choose one of the Automatic Table styles from the dropdown menu.
  Word will then create a TOC based on the headings you applied

3. Update the Table of Contents

• If you edit your document (add, remove, or rearrange headings), right-click the TOC.
• Select Update Field.
• Choose Update entire table to refresh the headings and page numbers

Additional Tips

• You can customize the TOC’s appearance, including the number of heading levels shown, fonts, and whether to display dotted lines between entries and page numbers

• The TOC entries are clickable links in the document. Hold Ctrl and click an entry to jump to that section

• If your document does not have heading styles applied, the TOC will be incomplete or missing entries

This method works in recent versions of Word including Word 365, Word 2021, and Word 2019

. This process automates TOC creation and makes navigating large documents much easier.