Is there a way on Microsoft word whereby?

Question

I can have say a contents page in the beginning, but the contents page will be able to automatically update it's contents say if I were to add extra pages to the whole report or move pages, how would that be possible with Microsoft Word other than manually updating the contents page.

Answer 1

I can't think of a way to have it update automatically, but you can have a link in the contents to each section / page to aid navigation if you want to:

1) First you must choose one of the Heading styles for each heading you want to link to, otherwise it won't be recognised - highlight the text and click on the "AA" icon at the beginning of the Formatting toolbar, then click on one of the "Headings" in the navigation pane that opens

2) Right-click where you want the link to be and click on Hyperlink

3) Under "Link to", click Place in This Document

4) Click on the heading from the list in the central box

5) Change / edit the name in "Text to display" if required

6) Click OK

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Word's own Table of Contents field doesn't update automatically (that is, just by you adding entries to the document), but you can easily trigger it to update.

These instructions are for Word 2002 (XP) but should be very close in adjacent versions.

1. Go to the point where you want the TOC to be, usually right before the first page.

2. Click on the Insert->Reference->Index and Tables menu item.

3. Select the Table of Contents tab.

4. Under Print Preview there are a few options you may wish to select or deselect, including one for tab leaders.

5. Click OK.

6. This will insert a table of contents field in your document, but since you don't have any entries, you'll see this message:

   Error! No table of contents entries found.

Not to worry.  To make entries, you'll have to use Heading styles. Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3 are by default collected for the Table of contents, but you can play around and get others also.   There's even a way of putting in entries that aren't flagged by style.  

The Table of Contents also doesn't continually update itself.  You have to tell it to whenever you want it to:

1. Right click in the table and select Update Field.

2. An Update Table of Contents dialog box will appear.

3. Click the Update Entire Field button.

4. Click OK.

You'll also probably want to put the Table in a separate section (use the Insert->Break menu item and select Section/Next page from the list).

And you may want to number the pages following the TOC starting at 1.

1. Click anywhere In the first section after the TOC.

2. Click the Insert->Page Numbers menu item.

3. In the Page Numbers dialog box, click the Format button.

4. Click Start At.

5. Click OK.  

6. DO NOT CLICK OK ON THE PAGE NUMBERS DIALOG BOX OR YOU'LL INSERT A DEFAULT PAGE NUMBER FIELD. Click CANCEL instead.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Yes. Microsoft Word has a feature that builds a Table of Contents based on the headings in your document. I think you can find it in the Insert menu. I believe that you need to have actually used heading styles in your document for it to work.