Within your paper, make sure that your section headings are formatted in the Heading Style in Word. To do this, highlight your section heading, then go to Home and choose Heading 1 under Styles.
When all of your headings are formatted correctly, click the place where you want your table of contents to go. Select the References tab, select Table of Contents, and choose one of the Automatic Table of Contents.
If using subheadings: Highlight the subheading, choose Heading 2 under Styles. Word will make a multi-level list based off of your headings and subheadings. If needing to further break down your paper with a subheading under this subheading, you would choose Heading 3.
There are two ways to update your table of contents after making changes to your paper. One way is to go to the References tab and click Update Table. Another way is to click on the table of contents itself and click Update Table. When you click Update Table, you will have the option to update page numbers only or update the entire table. If you made any changes to your headings/subheadings, you will want to click Update entire table.
Tips: Holding down the Ctrl key and clicking one of the headings within the Table of Contents will take you to the actual heading within your paper. You can also edit your table of contents. You can highlight text within your table of contents and choose what font, size, color, etc. you want. You can also go to References > Table of Contents > Custom Table of Contents to make edits to your table of contents. You can choose what you want your tab leader to look like, different formats, and how many levels you want to show.
As a Mac user, you should be able to follow the steps provided above. The buttons and dialog boxes may appear slightly different, though.
Where to find Styles:
Where to find Table of Contents:
