Word 2003: Create Table of Contents 2

[firefytr]

Okay, so I'm a Word idiot. I would like to make a Table of Contents with a file I have. It's an ordinance for a governemnt entity and it's getting quite long. The TOC would be most helpful I think, but I have no idea of how to do it.

My document is just typed text. Each "chapter" heading is typed, then a single return and the body of each, then double returned and another "chapter" is started.

Example:

Chapter 1
blah blah blah... blah blah blah..

Chapter 2
blah blah blah...

etc.

Don't know if this makes a difference or not. Never used anything like this in Word, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

-----------
Regards,
Zack Barresse

 

[SkipVought]

Zack,

The TOC functionality is tied to the HEADING Styles.

If your Chapters are formatted with a HEADING style, then just follow the bouncing ball in Insert/Reference/Index & Tables - TOC tab.

Skip,

_[red][/red]

 

[firefytr]

Thanks Skip! I know nothing about Styles. (Pathetic, I know. Too much time with Excel. LOL!) I think I got it figured out. I set it up and went to each "chapter", selected it and changed it to 'Level 1', then updated the TOC and it appeared! I hope I'm doing it right - it looks right.

Thanks for the right heading Skip, much, much appreciated.

-----------
Regards,
Zack Barresse

 

[fumei]

Sorry Skip...but you are incorrect. The ToC functionality is NOT tied to the Heading Styles.

The style of the ToC entry itself has a ToC style. The default styles to use for generation of the table is, it is true, Heading 1 , Heading 2, etc.

HOWEVER, the functionality is NOT tied to those. You can use any style you want. The ToC is tied to styles, this is true, but not HEADING styles.

In fact, I never use HEADING 1 (etc) styles. I have my own. It depends on the document.

For technical documents:

TechDocTOC1
TechDocTOC2
TechDocTOC2

For proposal documents:

BizPropTOC1
BizPropTOC2
BizPropTOC3

etc etc

You get the picture. That way, my "headings" are precisely formatted (defined by Styles) for each document type, and the ToC are generated from those.

Insert > Reference > Index and Tables > Options. You can deselect Heading 1, Heading 2 (etc.) and renumber the levels on any available style you like.

Zack - Word is designed around Styles. It is the key to really getting a handle on professional level documents. OK...maybe that is pushing it, but not too much. Once Styles are truly incorporated into your Word documents - and I will admit it is not easy getting that mind set - that and the proper use of templates will make Word a lot better to use.

Gerry

 

[SkipVought]

Gerry,

I stand corrected. That's why you're the MS Word guru. I guess I know enought to be dangerous.

My problem is that I have no reason at this point to be a power MA Word user. I wish I were, but my use is sporatic.

Good job! Thanks for the good info!

Skip,

_[red][/red]

 

[fumei]

You're welcome.

I'm not sure this is in the power user arena. Using styles properly can certainly help power users - and be, in fact, required - but basic use of styles would make anyone a decent Word user.

To me, not using styles is the equivalent to only hard coding numbers in Excel. That is, never using formula. It is contrary to how the application is designed to be used.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[tf1]

Zack

If your document is getting long and you have used heading styles, an oft missed tool for fast navigation is the Document Map (DM).

Open the DM and it shows a list of all the headings. Clicking on a particular heading jumps you to that point for editing. You can right-click and change how many heading levels you want to display too which is usefull if the document becomes very long with multiple heading levels.

Of course, you can also click (or Control+Click) on page numbers in the ToC and that will jump you to that point in the document too. Then there is (hidden away along with most of the useful Word commands) is a return to ToC command button. Another useful tool for navigating long documents.


Regards: tf1

 

[fumei]

tf - while I have found the DM useful...sometimes, at other times it seems to load very strange things as heading items. Any idea why that would be?

For example, I just received a document that someone did some reviewing on. In the DM the items (by style) are:

Myheading1
MyHeading2
Myheading1
MyHeading2
BodyText + Bold - this is a review insertion
BodyText
MyHeading2
ImageHolder + Left - ImageHolder is a style explicitly for images. The review decided to move it left (using Decrease Indent)
MyHeading1
BodyText + Bold - review insertion

My point is that DM offers listed items that are NOT headings.

Thoughts?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[tf1]

Hi Gerry

Yes... the DocMap is in reality an AutoFormat tool. This was something that we discovered when talking to one of the Word Project Mangers. We had, in fact, put it to him that we often got strange results using the DM - particularly with Level 2 headings changing levels at random.

When he told us that the DM was AutoFormating your document guessing which short sentences were headings and formatting as such, we were all pretty much gob smacked. He because it was so obvious to him that and the rest of us because we never even dreamt that is was such a tool!

Knowing that, it seems easy to make sure that formatting is correct and the DM doesn't have affect because everything is in its correct style.

The plan was to stop the AutoFormat function of DM but I haven't had a chance to test it in Word 2007 yet. It certainly seemed to be much more predictable in Word 2003. It certainly shouldn't select a style such as 'ImageHolder Left' and make it into a Heading. Which version of Word is this? Is the ImageHolder Left style based on Normal or a Heading style? Try basing it on No Style and see if it still happens.

Terry

Regards: tf1

 

[fumei]

2002.

The reviewer took my ImageHolder paragraph and manually added Bold. ImageHolder is based on my created BodyText, which was based on Normal.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[firefytr]

Is there any good resource out there for learning Styles? Sounds like it can be very powerful and a great tool to use when creating documents.

Thanks for all your help tf1 and Gerry.

-----------
Regards,
Zack Barresse

 

[fumei]

There are gobs of mentions of styles. Essentially though, once you get the concept, it is really just the practical use of them.

One link to start

Here is a line from that site that should get the real Word users here laughing....

Apply the List Bullet styles to apply bullets. This is more stable and more controllable than using the Bullets and Numbering dialog box on the Format menu.

Bullets and Numbering!

I STRONGLY recommend that you make a template file to start collecting your styles. The default location for new styles is Normal.dot. Which...is OK, but in the long run...not OK. Further, the use of styles is fully integrated with the use of templates. Templates HOLD styles. Normal.dot ( a template file) usually holds them, but it can get messy fairly quickly, so start with making a new template. save it. Add new styles to it, and play with them there.

Here is one thing about styles. If you use proper styles you will NEVER have to do that "extra" Enter key to make a space between paragraphs. You can absolutely define the space between paragraphs with a style, and when used....there it is.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[fumei]

Hey tf....changing it to based on No style worked! It disappears off the DM.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[tf1]

Hi Gerry and Zack

Styles are powerful and definitely the best way to use Word. How I approach styles is to use my own templates, as Gerry recmmends above.

I always start by creating a baseline style for a template. (This may be the same BL style in common with other templates that are going to be used together by the same user group.) I always avoid basing on normal.dot because I don't want accidental changes in normal.dot to flow through all the other styles based on it. The BL style will be based on No Style and named something refelecting the template or the user group.

Most of the other styles will now be based on the BL style: the usual exception being 'cascading' styles such as Headings where Heading 1 is based on the BL style and the lower Headings based on the previous Heading level.

This seems to work for us at work and was reached after much trial and error. The user group I support all seem to love copying and pasting from previous documents to save time. It used to cause all sorts of problems with style conflicts and especially numbering problems!

Some of the users found it very difficult to refrain from hitting ENTER twice after every paragraph - but eventually they all got there. (Threatening to give them a typewriter helped.)

Terry



Regards: tf1

 

[firefytr]

Okay, maybe I'm not understanding here, but why would you NOT hit Enter twice to start a new paragraph?? What *would* you do then?? Just stop typing at the end of the paragraph and apply a new style, then start typing again?

-----------
Regards,
Zack Barresse

 

[Lilliabeth]

Zack, You could have incorporated into the style definition either Spacing Before each paragraph, or Spacing After each paragraph or both.

The when you hit Enter, you automatically get vertical space between paragraphs, so ne need for an empty paragraph.

 

[tf1]

By hitting enter twice, you are placing two paragraphs in Word - though one is an empty paragraph. Those paragraph marks that you see each contain the formatting information about the paragraph.

If you have used styles and no direct formatting, Word only has to render the inormation from the style descriptors. If you have used direct formatting, Word has to render the paragraph using the style descriptors and then it has to go through rendering the direct formatting.

When Word opens and lays out the document, if it only has to render the styles, it is much faster. The document is also much simpler and more compact so is much less likely to corrupt.

If you have enter blank paragraphs throught the document as inter pargraph spacing, the document is longer with unecessary complexity.

Terry

Regards: tf1

 

[fumei]

Zack, the Enter key makes a paragraph mark. This holds all the format information of the paragraph. Every time you use the Enter key, you make a new paragraph. So, here is the "extra" Enter key to make space.

Paragraph (text blah blah blah)
Paragraph (blank - no text - used to make space)
Paragraph (text blah blah blah)

THREE paragraphs

Here are paragraphs that use a style (with a defined SpaceAfter) to make the space.

Paragraph (text blah blah blah)

Paragraph (text blah blah blah)

TWO paragraphs

Not only is it a good idea to have the space after (or before...or whatever) defined because you can set that precisely, but a Word document with less paragraph marks is a good thing.

Word parses through every single paragraph mark, and every property in it. Word does not ignore properties that are False, for example; it checks each and every property in each and every paragraph mark, checking to see if something IS False or True. So, for example, you have a paragraph that is not Bold. Word actually looks in the property of that paragraph and READS .Font.Bold = False.

The application actually READS it. It takes the time and resources to do so. I know, this is not so much a big deal now with powerful processors and lots of memory. But...nevertheless it DOES perform a read. And it does that for every paragraph mark.l So why have "extra" ones, when you get better precision without them (using styles), AND Word does not have to run the following (and it is not even all of it), for every single paragraph????

    With Selection.Font
        .Name = "Times New Roman"
        .Size = 12
        .Bold = False
        .Italic = False
        .Underline = wdUnderlineNone
        .UnderlineColor = wdColorAutomatic
        .StrikeThrough = False
        .DoubleStrikeThrough = False
        .Outline = False
        .Emboss = False
        .Shadow = False
        .Hidden = False
        .SmallCaps = False
        .AllCaps = False
        .Color = wdColorAutomatic
        .Engrave = False
        .Superscript = False
        .Subscript = False
        .Spacing = 0
        .Scaling = 100
        .Position = 0
        .Kerning = 0
        .Animation = wdAnimationNone
    End With
    With Selection.ParagraphFormat
        .LeftIndent = InchesToPoints(0)
        .RightIndent = InchesToPoints(0)
        .SpaceBefore = 6
        .SpaceBeforeAuto = False
        .SpaceAfter = 0
        .SpaceAfterAuto = False
        .LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceSingle
        .Alignment = wdAlignParagraphLeft
        .WidowControl = True
        .KeepWithNext = False
        .KeepTogether = False
        .PageBreakBefore = False
        .NoLineNumber = False
        .Hyphenation = True
        .FirstLineIndent = InchesToPoints(0)
        .OutlineLevel = wdOutlineLevelBodyText
        .CharacterUnitLeftIndent = 0
        .CharacterUnitRightIndent = 0
        .CharacterUnitFirstLineIndent = 0
        .LineUnitBefore = 0
        .LineUnitAfter = 0
    End With
    With Selection.ParagraphFormat
        .LeftIndent = InchesToPoints(0)
        .RightIndent = InchesToPoints(0)
        .SpaceBefore = 6
        .SpaceBeforeAuto = False
        .SpaceAfter = 0
        .SpaceAfterAuto = False
        .LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceSingle
        .Alignment = wdAlignParagraphLeft
        .WidowControl = True
        .KeepWithNext = False
        .KeepTogether = False
        .PageBreakBefore = False
        .NoLineNumber = False
        .Hyphenation = True
        .FirstLineIndent = InchesToPoints(0)
        .OutlineLevel = wdOutlineLevelBodyText
        .CharacterUnitLeftIndent = 0
        .CharacterUnitRightIndent = 0
        .CharacterUnitFirstLineIndent = 0
        .LineUnitBefore = 0
        .LineUnitAfter = 0
    End With

Remember, Word does not know something = 0, or = False (or True), it actually checks. It reads the property. Every single property, for every single paragraph mark.

Using Styles gives you precise control of format, AND keeps Word running better. Word is designed for the use of styles. In fact, no matter what you do, every piece of text has a style anyway. Why not have the control of that be you, rather than some default weirdness of Word?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[firefytr]

Thank you so very much for the detailed explanation Gerry! It's much appreciated. As I'm sure you know, I don't spend much time in Word, but rather mostly in Excel. This takes me a little closer to understanding my applications. Thank you very much.

-----------
Regards,
Zack Barresse

 

[Storyteller]

Hello All,
When working with Styles I always tell people to type first, then cut/copy/paste the text until your document reads properly then format it with Styles. It runs counter to how most people have learned to type, as most of us are use to formatting as we type hence the double enter at the end of a paragraph.

The other thing I would like to emphasis is what tf1 (Terry) said in passing. Always create your style based on "No Style", the reason is that if you base it off "Normal", how do you know the next computer your document lands on has the same "Normal" as yours? Anyways, normal is highly over-rated

To my neighbours to the South, have a great 4th of July !!

Regards,
Michael