One of the things I’m on a rant about these days is loooooong documents. Complicated documents, like 20+ page contracts and appellate briefs and stuff like that.
Why? Because they always seem to need special stuff inserted in them. Like custom headers and footers. And level-1 and level-2 and level-out-the-wazoo headings. It’s enough to make your head spin.
But if you’ve got mad skills and you plan your document right, a lot of this stuff becomes easier. Like putting in a simple table of contents, for example.
And if one of your mad skills is using the Styles feature to format your document headings, that’s going to make it way easier to pull together an automated table of contents. Once you’ve marked each heading and subheading with the appropriate level style, those same styles can be the basic building blocks for a table of contents that updates itself . (How cool is that?).
Here, let me show you:
Word 2002-2003
(Note: To get this full-screen, click the button in the lower-right-hand corner of the video player above.)
Word 2007-2010
(Note: To get this full-screen, click the button in the lower-right-hand corner of the video player above.)
See, that’s not so hard, is it?
Update: Okay, this is a weird coincidence – the day after I update this post with a version 2010 video tutorial, Microsoft’s Office Blog announces a free online course on creating a Table of Contents in Word 2010. Click here for the blog post and click here for the course itself.
And another update: Then I run across this: Modifying a TOC Style (Word 2007/2010) at a blog called compusavvy.wordpress.com. Very detailed explanation of how to change the formatting of your Table of Contents (and even Table of Authorities).
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