Table of Contents in Microsoft Word
March 27th, 2007 by SplineGuy
I am LaTEX disciple when it comes to writing up my own papers (No, not as in spandex, but the typesetting language). However, when I work with undergraduate students who have not had any exposure to such a language, I tend to encourage them to use Microsoft Word. I also encourage them to use the Equation Editor in the their math papers even though I must cringe as I read them. I don’t cringe because they are using a Microsoft product, but that the mathematics typesetting is still just so unsightly.
I was pleased to discover a functionality in Word that I was unaware of. If you utilize the “styles” for different headings, such as Heading 1 for Chapter titles, Heading 2 for Section titles, etc., Word will automatically generate a table of contents for you. In Microsoft Word 2003, select Insert . . Reference . . Index and Tables. You have options for Tables of Contents, Table of Figures, etc.
For more details, see Microsoft Word Help FAQ. How to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word.
On a side note: Each time that Microsoft develops an upgrade to one of its products, it generally surveys its users in one way or another to see what functionality they would like to see included in their upgrades. In listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Windows Weekly with Paul Thurott, I learned that the VAST majority of requests with respect to Microsoft Office are features that are already present and people just haven’t discovered them. That happens to be one of the motivations behind the User Interface redesign you see in Office 2007 (which I haven’t yet played with). Ever since I discovered the Table of Contents, I am on the hunt for new features that I have missed.
This year I incorporated a two-day LaTeX boot camp in to all my sophomore and upper-division math courses and required students to use LaTeX for all their important assignments. We used MiKTeX and TexNicCenter. They grumbled at first but now every one of them swears they’ll never go back to MS Equation Editor, and they do very good work with LaTeX.
So it’s good to find ways to make MS Word do stuff, but I’d also encourage you to really push your students into using LaTeX. I don’t see why even freshmen couldn’t learn the basics if they have a nice WYSIWYG environment to work with like TeXNicCenter.
When i bought Word in 1988, i also read the manual. When when i upgraded to Word 4.0 for the Mac, i read it again. But these days, they put Word in front of me, but no manual in sight. ToC generation isn’t terribly new, which is why i know about it.
At home, i now use OpenOffice, and am experimenting with AbiWord. I’ve not looked for a manual yet. Soon.