LibAnswers: Student Digital Skills and Assistive Technology

Yes you can, you can add an automated table of contents even if you have started your essay or dissertation document.

There are many benefits on adding a table of contents automatically, not only does it save you time but it reduces errors in your page numbering and further added sections and can also be updated throughout if you still need to add more content to your document.

To create an automatic table of contents in MS Word you need to apply Styles to headers and sub-headers.  Applying styles to your headers or sub-headers gets picked up when you then generate the automated table of content.

You probably already know what your section headers are in your document, typically in longer documents this could be main header, such as Introduction', 'Results' 'Findings', 'Conclusion'  and any sub section headers within these main headers or the body of the document. 

When you open word or your written file, under the Home tab, by default it's already applying some styles when you start typing - it applies the 'Normal Style'. It also has some defined header styles for Header 1 and Header 2 in the Styles panel. You can modify the styles, add more header styles to suit your document. 

Have a quick look at the video below which will demonstrate:

• Where styles are located in MS word
• How you can edit styles e.g. heading
• Add an automated table of contents

Full MS Word guide for assignments

Still have a question on using MS Word: Contact digitalsupport@dmu.ac.uk