Volumetric and structured Word documents involve the compilation of content. Making it up by hand is a rather troublesome task. In addition, if you change the formatting or any changes affecting the structure and volume of the document, such content becomes irrelevant. Therefore, those authors who are faced with this problem, sooner or later, have a question about how to make content automatic in Word. It is quite simple, and the skill of creating such a page will save a lot of time and avoid inaccuracies and errors.
Auto Content Features
In addition to the fact that automatic content in Word allows you to not worry about pagination manually, it also suggests other convenient features.
- The program itself searches for headings and subheadings, so there is no need to “collect” a document. This significantly reduces the number of errors associated with the "loss" of paragraphs.
- Automatic content in Word can be updated. That is, if after editing, the document has significant or minor changes regarding the deletion, addition or combination of chapters and paragraphs, their renaming, as well as after changing the composition, it is enough to update the content and the program will reflect all the changes. This is extremely convenient when working with documents that are edited several times (for example, this is often required at the final stage of work on a graduation project).
- The lines of automatic content are interactive links, when clicked, the user goes to a page with the corresponding part of the document. That is, if automatic content has already been created in the document, it is convenient to use it to navigate the document. In the event that the document is voluminous, this opportunity is difficult to overestimate.
The principle of creating automatic content
A lot of users know that such content can be made, but they don’t know how. In Word, making automatic content is quite simple, unlike some typesetting programs. The principle of creating content is simple: headings and subheadings, which will then be submitted to the page with the content, must be marked with special styles. That is, the title lines should be different from the main text and be formatted so that the program reads them as lines, which then need to be copied and placed as a list on a separate page, while indicating next to each line on which page it is located.
After the heading lines and subheading lines are thus marked, a special command on a separate page creates the content, i.e. a list of these lines. This list, as already mentioned, needs to be kept up to date, that is, after making changes to the document, it is necessary to update the content. (Attention! The program does not update the created list "on its own initiative", it needs a special team).
Sequencing
In general, there are no alternative ways to make content in Word. This page is automatically generated according to the standard algorithm.
- Select the first-level title bar and select the “Heading 1” style. (Home - Styles). If necessary, change the size, font color and other parameters. Next, you can either do the same with each of the headings of the first level, or select the entire line again, press the “Format by format” button twice (Home - Clipboard) and then, flipping through the document, select all the relevant headings: they will be marked as headings and formatted at the same time.
- The same thing needs to be done with second-level headings (subheadings), but the style for formatting them needs to be selected “Heading 2”. If the document has headings of the third and lower levels that need to be included in the Contents, they should also be marked by selecting the appropriate styles for them ("Heading 3", etc.)
- Go to the blank page of the document reserved for Contents. Place the cursor, go to the "Links" tab and click on the "Table of Contents" button. Further, there are two ways of making content in Word. Automatic formatting and formatting of the content will occur if you select the type of table of contents from the drop-down list. However, you can click again on the word "Table of Contents" - at the bottom of the list. In the second case, a window will appear for adjusting and selecting parameters for the future Table of Contents.
- If necessary, format the generated content.
Advice
The potential capabilities of this function are quite large, and each user, after getting to know how to make automatic content, will surely find additional conveniences and sequence algorithms for himself. However, one of the tips should still be addressed.
If you already know the structure of the future document, print lines of future headings, immediately label them and immediately create a table of contents. Then you can fill in already created sections, while simultaneously entering and marking new headers or changing old ones. By updating the page with the table of contents, you will be able to easily navigate in your document and easily navigate through it. At the same time, the “Document Outline” option will be available on the “View” tab, which will make your work even more convenient.