Using computers for home assignments is an idea that's fast catching up. And when it comes to writing detailed reports, projects, essays or even personal articles — a word processor such as MS Word — is often the tool of choice. Today we are going to take a look at some of its features as it's more than just an interface to type text in.
MS Word is more powerful that what it is usually used for, and can automate tasks such as auto referencing, creating list of figures, tables and generation of Table of Contents (TOC), etc.

Let's quickly go through some of these features and see how these can be utilised to speed up the work in Windows 2003 and later versions. Open up an existing document or cut-paste a piece of text off the web to try out these examples. Before trying out techniques discussed here, remove all the formatting from existing document. To do this, select all the text (shortcut key CTRL+A) and from top left formatting toolbar, select Clear Formatting. Or use menu Format > Styles and Formatting that brings up a task pane at right side — select Clear Formatting here while all the text is selected. This removes all the formatting and we are ready to work on our examples.

 
First take a look at Document Map under View menu. It shows the outline of the document in a left pane — an important aid to browse through a lengthy document. It would be empty at the moment. Also open up the Outlining toolbar using View > Toolbars menu as it helps in organising a document into headings and subheadings that can be converted easily into TOC. Now from the sample document, select a heading text (or create your own heading text if required) and apply heading formatting. This can be done by either selecting Heading 1 from the top left dropdown in the formatting toolbar that by default shows Normal, or by using shortcut key CTRL+ALT+1.

Note that the Outlining toolbar now shows Level 1, indicating that a top-most heading has been created. Similarly, select a sub-heading from sample document and make it heading 2, either by selecting Heading 2 from formatting toolbar or by using shortcut key CTRL+ALT+2. Again note that the Outlining toolbar is updated showing Level 2 this time, while Document Map is also updated to show second level heading indented below the first — creating a hierarchy.

In the same way, go through the entire document applying Heading 1, 2 and 3 and see the Document Map auto-updating itself. Clicking inside the map takes the cursor at that heading — an easy way to navigate the document. If a mistake is made, such as if a paragraph becomes a heading, simply select it again and remove its formatting as described above.

Alternatively, use the Outlining toolbar to apply heading formatting by using the green buttons to the right and left of the level indicator, or use its dropdown menu and select Body Text to remove Level 1, 2 or 3 formatting.
Another common mistake that can be identified is that of gaps (empty lines) appearing in Document Map. It happens when a heading formatting is mistakenly applied to an empty line of text. To rectify it, simply select an empty line either in the map or in document and select Body Text from Outlining toolbar.

Once the document is organised in order, move to the top of the document and go to menu Inset > Reference > Index and Tables > Table of Contents tab. Leave all the settings to their defaults and press OK. TOC is generated automatically complete with page numbers.

 
If document is updated, right click inside the TOC and select Update Field > Update Entire Table and press OK to keep the page numbers updated. This completes our today's walkthrough of TOC generation.