MS-Word: Creating table of contents
I was quite surprised when my colleague -a programmer- walked up to me and asked me “how do I create ‘this’ kind of a TOC? I told him you have to make headings (H1, H2, H3 etc). “and?” He shot back. It was like deja vu for me. I keep explaining this to people once in a while. No, I am not saying it is a major problem. What I am trying to say is that ‘creating table of contents is not as easy to perform as say, formatting a paragraph?’
Sequence of Tasks (when I create a TOC):
- I apply heading styles to the headings I want in my TOC
- Once I am done with the document, I go to the start of the document (or where I want the TOC) and “insert>Index and tables>Table of contents” where I choose the style of my TOC (simple or formal etc) and also the number of heading levels I want in my TOC (only H1, H2 And H3 would give me a 3-level hierarchy).
- The MS-Word help explains this in simple language, in fact that’s where I learnt how to create TOCs, but a good number of people rely on ‘people’ rather on than on ‘Help’; they just call one of their colleagues and ask how to go about a particular task. This could be because it takes lesser time, and reading on the screen is tougher than reading a dead-tree version. That brings the point how many software products ship with a dead-tree version of the Manual?
- Now going back to creating TOCs in Word; I think that it is not a single task and there is an element of time involved in it. I mean you have to create a complete document with appropriate headings first (which is a task in itself call it task 1) and once you’re done you should go Insert>index and tables>table of contents and so on (call this task 2).
- The time between task1 and task2 could be anywhere between 30 minutes to 30 days (or more?), now that’s not the problem… MS-Word help does not explicitly state that it comprises two tasks. A simple statement like ‘Creating a table of contents involves two parts 1) Apply headings … 2) Click Insert>… might be helpful… I am just thinking aloud… do you think it is a problem? Creating TOCs in Word?
