Creating A Table Contents in Word for Mac . . . .

I just thought I would share this info because it is almost entirely unavailable on the net without extensive searching and your help in Word doesn't actually "help."

Word for Mac is significantly different and, ironically, less user-friendly than Word for Windows. This situation is not helped by the fact that Microsoft is not very forthcoming with information about Word for Mac.

Despite the terrible websites and the lack of information on the subject, creating a Table of contents is very easy on Word for Mac. The key is to make sure that the words you want to be appear in the Table of Contents are specified as "heading" words. This is simple.

 Sometimes you have a document that you have already created and it has become too unwieldy for you to keep track of. This has happened to me on a number of occasions. I have headings for sections but I find that when I want to insert some information it takes me a long time to find the page where I want to insert it. You know, you might have fifty or sixty pages and you know you want to put something in a general area but it is frustrating to work through the whole document to find the spot. Time to create a Table of Contents.

So first go to the words that you have designated section headings, like for example Introduction or Conclusion. Now highlight that word and open up your formatting palette. Open up the "Style" tab and it will give you a bunch of easy options of "Heading" styles. Click on the one that you like and the program will designate this word as a heading. Do this for each of the words that you want to appear as a heading for the table of contents. Once you are finished this, go to the top of you document and click on the "Document Elements" tab. This will then open up options for the style of the Table that you want to create. Simply click on the one you want and, Presto, the table of contents will be created. One tip that is important - make sure that when you do this last step, you have your cursor at the very spot you want the Table to appear (for example on a page right after the Title Page).

I hope this helps anyone who is having the trouble I was having.