Even though you end up with a blog post, many people start writing in the Microsoft editor. It’s good to know how to insert a table of contents at the stage of creating the material. This way, you will avoid duplicate work. This knowledge can also be useful when writing other documents, such as a bachelor’s or master’s thesis.
How to make an automatic table of contents in Word?
- First, you set the heading style for telegram number database your document. Mark the main headings as heading 1, and the subheadings as heading 2 , etc. This is a key point, because without it, Word won’t “catch” the appropriate titles.
- Once you have your text ready, go to the ” References ” tab (in older versions “References”) and select the ” Table of Contents ” option. There you can choose either a Custom Table of Contents or one of the built-in templates.
- This will create a table of contents in Word , where all the marked headings will automatically appear. If you change something in the chapters, just click “Update Table of Contents” – and that’s it.
The above procedure for inserting a table of contents is simple enough that you can do it even in a short document. However, it is worth incorporating the habit of good heading styling, because it is useful not only for the table, but also for further formatting of the document.
If necessary, you can also customize the table of contents to suit your aesthetic requirements – for example, insert a specific number of indentation levels (only main headings or also subheadings). You can change the font and color, and even decide whether you want to display page numbers in the table of contents. This is done using the “Modify” option in the table of contents settings in Word.
Manual table of contents in Word
You can also, of course, create a list the purpose does not understand fashions manually – but this usually doesn’t make much sense for longer works . Manually writing chapter titles and numbers can be time-consuming . What’s more, if you extend the document or change the order of sections, you have to correct the page numbers yourself . For a short text, this will be doable without any stress, but for larger documents, the manual method can be effectively discouraging.
The manual option is a good start though – it lets you understand exactly how styles and structure work. After a while, most people choose the automatic table of contents anyway, because the key is to update the table of contents without having to search the document to see which titles have moved up or down a page.
You can see how it’s done in the guide on the Microsoft website .
How to make a table of contents on a blog?
Many bloggers write straight into usa b2b list the editor of WordPress, Joomla, or another platform. If you use WordPress, you have two popular ways. First, you can use the built-in block (if your theme version supports it), which helps you insert a table of contents at the beginning of the article. Second, there are a whole range of plugins that generate a table of contents made automatically, based on structured headings H2, H3, etc.
Additionally, remember to check from time to time whether the plugin is compatible with the new version of WordPress. This will help you avoid situations where the table of contents looks strange or errors appear in legible linking.
It is also worth paying attention to how you mark individual chapters in the text. In the WordPress hierarchy, you will most often come across headings from H2 to H6 (H1 is usually the title of the post). Therefore, it is worth defining the main sections as H2, and if you want to further break up the topic, reach for H3 or H4. This way, you will make it easy for the plugin or built-in block to recognize the structure and generate the list automatically.
If your theme does not offer a dedicated function and none of the plugins meet your expectations, you can prepare the list manually, using so-called anchor links in the HTML code. However, this is a more time-consuming solution, because every time you change the content, you have to remember to update all the links leading to specific sections. In most cases, it is much more convenient to rely on a proven plugin or a ready-made tool available in the theme.