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The University of Tennessee

Thesis/Dissertation Consultant

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Thesis/Dissertation website » MS Word Heading Styles


Table of Contents

To allow Microsoft Word to generate a table of contents based on your text, you must use headings in your “Styles and Formatting.” To accomplish this, follow these steps:

  1. If you are using Word 2007: Choose the “Home” ribbon. The “Style” menu should appear on the left side of the ribbon, with white boxes showing different Styles. If you do not see Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, click the “expand” or “open Style window” icon on the bottom right corner of the Style menu. Scroll through the list until you see the entries for the Headings.

    *Note: If you are using MS Word 2003 or earlier: Click the “Format” tab in your Word document. Choose “Styles and Formatting.” This should bring up another window within Microsoft Word with several style choices.

  2. In the “Styles and Formatting” window (the right-hand window), select “Heading 1” and click the dropdown arrow on the right.
  3. Click “Modify.” A window should pop up. In this window you will modify the style of your “Heading 1.” Once you choose the font type (use the same font face as the rest of the text), size, and style, this should be applied consistently to any heading you select to be a “Heading 1.”

    *Note: In Word 2007, you can also choose “Update Heading to match selection” if you have already formatted your headings to your liking.

  4. Select the text you would like to create as “Heading 1” Highlight this text with your cursor. Click “Heading 1” in the “Styles and Formatting” window to the right.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 with the rest of the heading levels you wish to use for the document.
  6. Once you have applied heading styles to the entire document, place your cursor on the page you wish to use as your table of contents. If you are using Word 2007, click on the “References” menu. Select “Table of Contents.” You may choose one of the “built in” tables of contents or click “Insert Table of Contents” for more options.

    *Note: If you are using Word 2003 or earlier, click the “Insert” tab in the Word document. Select “Reference” then “Index and Tables.”In the “Index and Tables” window, click the tab for “Table of Contents.”

  7. You may choose the number of heading levels you wish to include in the table of contents (the default is 3 levels), then click “OK.” Word will generate your table of contents.
  8. To update the table of contents, right-click on the table of contents. Select “Update field.” You may choose to either update the entire table or update page numbers only. Perform this step any time you make corrections to the text.

Modified from “Using Adobe Acrobat 7.0 to Create an Electronic Thesis or Dissertation” by P.J. Snodgrass, 2005.

Contact The Consultant

111 Student Services Bldg.
Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone: (865) 974-1337
Email (preferred): thesis@utk.edu

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