Lesson 36: Creating a Table of Contents

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Creating a table of contents

Writing assignments like research papers or annual reports can become long and uneasy to manage. A table of contents can add structure to your document and help readers find what they’re looking for. It also provides easy navigation when the document is printed as a PDF or Word document. In this lesson, you'll learn how to create, format, and add a table of contents to your document.

Watch the video to learn how to create a table of contents in Google Docs.


Creating table of contents

To create a table of contents, you’ll need to use headings. 

  1. Highlight the title of a section.
    highlighting title of a section
  2. Click the Styles menu and select a heading.
    selecting a heading
  3. Once you create a heading style for each section, click where you want the table of contents to go.
  4. Click Insert. Hover the mouse over Table of contents.
    inserting table of contents
  5. Select a layout style. One layout has blue links, while the other shows page numbers. However, they both work the same way.
    clicking page number layout
  6. Use the toolbar to edit and format the text as you please.
    changing text color
  7. If you’d like to go to a particular section, click it, then click the link in the box.
    navigating to a section

To add a section:

  1. To add a new section, create a new heading.
  2. Click the table of contents and select the Refresh icon.
    clicking the refresh icon

To update or delete:

  • Right-click the table of contents, and use the menu to update or delete it.
    updating or deleting table of contents

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