In my last blog post, January 9, 2006, we talked about creating a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word 2003 using built-in styles. In this post, we'll talk about the other methods of creating TOCs in Word: creating them from custom styles, from marked text and from outline levels.

Creating TOC entries from custom styles is similar to creating TOC entries using the built-in styles. The difference is that rather than relying on Headings 1, 2 and 3, which look the way someone at Microsoft decided they should look, you can format text with styles you might want to call Chapter Heading, Major Heading and Minor Heading, for example -- and give them the font, size and spacing that suits your needs.

The first thing you need to do is create the styles. We'll talk about doing this in Word 2003; it works a little differently in the older versions. Here's how:

1. Select the first line of text in your document that will be a major headline. Use the formatting toolbar or the Font dialog box (Ctrl + D) to format it.
2. Display the task pane, if it isn't already visible (Ctrl + F1).
3. Click the small, down arrow at the upper-right corner of the task pane, then select Styles and Formatting.
4. With the cursor in the text you just formatted, click the New Style button. Type a name for the style (like Major Heading), then click OK.
5. In the task pane, click the style name you just created. The text won't change appearance, but it will now be defined by the style name you just clicked.
6. Click in the next headline that should look the same as the last headline you just formatted, then click the style name in the task pane. Repeat until all headlines are formatted with your new style.
7. If you want headers that are subordinate to your major headline, repeat steps 1-6, using a new style name.

Once all your major and minor headlines are tagged, insert the TOC almost the same way you did if you followed the directions in my last blog post.

1. Click the spot in your document where you want the TOC to go. In Word 2003, select Insert/Reference/Index and Tables, then click the Table of Contents tab.
2. Click the Options button.
3. Select the Styles checkbox, and deselect the checkboxes for Outline levels and Table entry fields.
4. Delete the numbers in the text boxes to the right of Headings 1, 2 and 3.
5. In the same list, find the style names you created earlier, and put the appropriate numbers in their text boxes -- 1 for the first TOC level, 2 for the second TOC level (if any), and so on.
6. Click OK, then click OK again. You'll now have a table of contents that uses your own, custom styles.

The other two methods for creating a table of contents is to base the entries on outline levels and text that you specifically mark as TOC entries.

Outline View is for creating structured outlines. To use it, click the Outline View icon in the lower-left corner of the screen. Use the Outlining toolbar to mark text as a heading level or as body text (or press Tab to indent text to a lower level heading and press Shift + Tab to mark text as a higher level heading).

When your outline is finished and you're ready to insert your table of contents, click the Options button as before, and select only the Outline Levels checkbox. Click OK, then click OK again.

The third (or fourth) way of putting document text into a table of contents is to manually mark the text. Since this can take a lot of manual labor in a long document, use it only if you need to put text in a table of contents that can't be formatted like the rest of your headings. This takes only a few steps:

1. Select the first line of text that should go into the TOC.
2. Press Ctrl + Shift + O (that's O like Oscar, not the number zero) to display the Mark TOC dialog box.
   
   The text you selected will be listed, with a table identifier of C and a level of 1. The C means you're creating a table of contents, and the 1 means the text will be the first TOC level. You can change the letter, if you want a different sort of table (like I for index, or D for diagrams), but that's a discussion for another day.
3. Leave this dialog box open (drag it out of the way, if necessary), then select the second line of text to go into the table of contents.
4. Click the Mark TOC dialog box to have this second line of text listed. Change the level, if you need, then repeat.
5. When you've marked all the text you want, insert the TOC as we discussed above. When you click the Options button in the TOC dialog box, make sure to select Table entry fields.

One last word about tables of contents: there's no rule that says you have to use only one method or another. If you have a huge document, you can use all the methods we discussed in both of these TOC blog posts and they will each do their own thing.

Cats. . . . . . . . . . .5   <-- Heading 1 / Level 1 
   Black and white . . .10   <-- Heading 2 / Level 2 
   Calico. . . . . . . .12
      Long hair. . . . .13   <-- Heading 3 / Level 3 
      Short hair. . . . 14
   Siamese. . . . . . . 15
Dogs. . . . . . . . . . 20
   Poodles. . . . . . . 23
      Miniature. . . . .24
      Large. . . . . . .25
   Rottweilers. . . . . 25
   Golden Retrievers. . 26