Formatting Table of Contents

[Will Simmons]

Running Word 98 under OS 9.2.2 on a Power Mac beige G3 with 352 MB Built-in
memory. When I insert (via INSERT INDEX AND TABLES) a table of contents
"from template" and choose the styles applicable (from my list of styles)
for headings -- say, 1 though 6 -- Word fills in the boxes for the
"remaining" headings with the numbers of its own headings, in this case 7
through 9.

I delete the contents of those boxes, but they are back when need to
update the table of contents. Should I develop my own styles for all 9
levels of headings ? Is there any danger if I do not and just leave unused
heading levels as Word has them styled ?

Second, am I correct that I must separately establish "TOC Heading"
styles, otherwise Word will use its own, which have peculiarities, e. g.,
everything beyond "TOC Heading 5" is smaller than 10 points. Why doesn't
Word just use my document heading styles in the T of C ?

In sum, (a) is there a swifter, less complex way to format my T of C's ?;
and (b) are later Word versions less complicated in this area ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-- Will --

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

In sum, (a) is there a swifter, less complex way to format my T of C's ?;

and (b) are later Word versions less complicated in this area ?

Later versions are no less complicated.

I'm not quite sure, but it sounds to me as though you are a little confused.

In a basic TOC, built from Heading styles, Word creates a TOC entry from
Heading 1 that is formatted as TOC 1. I don't quite know what you mean by a
TOC Heading style.

In the boxes you mention, by putting a 1 for Heading 1, you are telling Word
to use TOC 1 to format the TOC entries based on Heading 1. I'm not sure
that the way you describe it is the same thing.

You do not need to build your own TOC styles--simply Modify the existing TOC
styles.

Does that help? Please post back with further questions.

DM

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Will:

We normally recommend that you customise the built-in Heading styles to your
tastes rather than create your own Heading styles. The reason is that the
built-in styles come with predefined properties that are undefined in other
styles. This is what is causing your problem.

Word's TOC generator compiles the TOC by searching for paragraphs with an
Outline Level applied in their Paragraph properties. If you want to
continue using your own heading styles, you need to define the Outline Level
appropriately for each of them.

The Outline level affects, among other things, if the paragraph appears in
the TOC, and if it does, which TOC style is used to format it in the TOC.

Once you have set up your Level properties correctly, when you use
Insert>TOC your own styles will appear on the Options dialog of Insert TOC,
with the appropriate level specified.

Word's built-in styles will also appear. Clear their checkboxes to remove
them. Make sure you save both the document and its template to store this
setting.

No, you cannot define ANY of your own TOC styles. The TOC generator can use
only the built-in TOC series of styles TOC 1 through TOC 9. You should
format these to suit yourself. You should ensure when you do that that you
switch "Automatically Update" off for each style. If you do not, your style
formatting can be changed, and if it is, it can change the formatting of all
the lower-level TOC styles.

If you use a TOC format of anything other than "From Template", your own TOC
styles will be ignored: Word redefines the TOC style formatting when it
generates the TOC to produce the standard formats, and switches
Automatically Update on to ensure that it can do this.

You can safely ignore the formatting of any styles you do not intend to use.
A style definition is simply a row in an internal formatting table. It's
tiny, and it doesn't matter what it specifies if there is no text of that
style contained in the document.

Hope this helps

Running Word 98 under OS 9.2.2 on a Power Mac beige G3 with 352 MB Built-in
memory. When I insert (via INSERT INDEX AND TABLES) a table of contents
"from template" and choose the styles applicable (from my list of styles)
for headings -- say, 1 though 6 -- Word fills in the boxes for the
"remaining" headings with the numbers of its own headings, in this case 7
through 9.

I delete the contents of those boxes, but they are back when need to
update the table of contents. Should I develop my own styles for all 9
levels of headings ? Is there any danger if I do not and just leave unused
heading levels as Word has them styled ?

Second, am I correct that I must separately establish "TOC Heading"
styles, otherwise Word will use its own, which have peculiarities, e. g.,
everything beyond "TOC Heading 5" is smaller than 10 points. Why doesn't
Word just use my document heading styles in the T of C ?

In sum, (a) is there a swifter, less complex way to format my T of C's ?;
and (b) are later Word versions less complicated in this area ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-- Will --

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Will Simmons]

In a basic TOC, built from Heading styles, Word creates a TOC entry from
Heading 1 that is formatted as TOC 1. I don't quite know what you mean by a
TOC Heading style.

In the boxes you mention, by putting a 1 for Heading 1, you are telling Word
to use TOC 1 to format the TOC entries based on Heading 1. I'm not sure
that the way you describe it is the same thing.

You do not need to build your own TOC styles--simply Modify the existing TOC
styles.

Does that help? Please post back with further questions.

Yes it does, and I thank you. My longer response to John McGhie in this
thread shows my initial level of confusion. Thank heaven for folks like
you who take time to straighten the rest of us out. And, I'm not talking
just relief from generalized consternation. I use Word in work that pays
the bills (and the taxes to those armed guys).

-- Will --

 

[Will Simmons]

We normally recommend that you customise the built-in Heading styles to your
tastes rather than create your own Heading styles. The reason is that the
built-in styles come with predefined properties that are undefined in other
styles. This is what is causing your problem.

Did not know about the "predefined properties." I'm appalled that the
online help file mentions no such thing (at least to my knowledge). Now
that I've switched to your system (see below), I can see why I was having
so much trouble.

Word's TOC generator compiles the TOC by searching for paragraphs with an
Outline Level applied in their Paragraph properties. If you want to
continue using your own heading styles, you need to define the Outline Level
appropriately for each of them.

Even after I printed out your instructions, taped them to my monitor and
started stepping through them, it took me 10 minutes to perceive that in
Format-Style-Modify-Format-Paragraph, the window includes a choice of
"Outline Level" with a drop down list of "body text, Level 1, Level 2 . .
.." etc. Never noticed, let alone understood that choice in the years I have
been using Word. I have developed lengthy documents with working outlines
-- but always using Outline View with the Level 1-9 headings. I didn't
know that I could assign my own headings to outline levels. And I certainly
never imagined that, once my own headings are assigned via this
Format-Style-Modify-Format-Paragraph-Outline Level choice, Word
automatically creates the outline, so that when I shift to Outline View, my
document can be manipulated, i.Êe., collapsed and expanded, etc., as though
I had started it in Outline View using the Outline Toolbar. Fantastic.

The Outline level affects, among other things, if the paragraph appears in
the TOC, and if it does, which TOC style is used to format it in the TOC.

Once you have set up your Level properties correctly, when you use
Insert>TOC your own styles will appear on the Options dialog of Insert TOC,
with the appropriate level specified.

Word's built-in styles will also appear. Clear their checkboxes to remove
them. Make sure you save both the document and its template to store this
setting.

No, you cannot define ANY of your own TOC styles. The TOC generator can use
only the built-in TOC series of styles TOC 1 through TOC 9. You should
format these to suit yourself. You should ensure when you do that that you
switch "Automatically Update" off for each style. If you do not, your style
formatting can be changed, and if it is, it can change the formatting of all
the lower-level TOC styles.

Again, where does in the online help say anything about the workings of the
"TOC generator" ? I have produced both outlined and plain vanilla documents
with Word 5.1 through Word 98 without running across these details.

BTW, now that I've discovered the choice, should I check "add to template"
? My document is based on the Normal template, and I would like to have
these heading types generally available (since I can change them at will in
any event). (And, yes, I have printed out and studied your sagacious
messages in other threads about Normal and other templates; but, until I
fully understand them, I am just sticking with Normal.)

If you use a TOC format of anything other than "From Template", your own TOC
styles will be ignored: Word redefines the TOC style formatting when it
generates the TOC to produce the standard formats, and switches
Automatically Update on to ensure that it can do this.

Many thanks for the help, which has instantaneously given me a completely
outlined 110 page document when I had no hope of finding what I supposed to
be the hours necessary to get it into that format. (I had just hoped to
give it a T of C.)

-- Will --

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Not a full response, just some comments/references:

And I certainly
never imagined that, once my own headings are assigned via this
Format-Style-Modify-Format-Paragraph-Outline Level choice, Word
automatically creates the outline, so that when I shift to Outline View, my
document can be manipulated, i.Êe., collapsed and expanded, etc., as though
I had started it in Outline View using the Outline Toolbar. Fantastic.

More on what you can do in Outline View, though you may already know it--you
can also move text around.
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
(hit refresh a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

BTW, now that I've discovered the choice, should I check "add to template"
? My document is based on the Normal template, and I would like to have
these heading types generally available (since I can change them at will in
any event).

Yes, "add to template." If you get a "do you want to save Normal" dialog on
exit, say yes. Or hit Save All to ensure that your changes are saved to
template right away instead of on exit. But do *not* check "automatically
update," which means that if you later bold one word, Word will think you
wanted to redefine the style to include bold and bold everything.

(And, yes, I have printed out and studied your sagacious
messages in other threads about Normal and other templates; but, until I
fully understand them, I am just sticking with Normal.)

Just make sure you back it up regularly.
This page, under About Templates, might help clarify--it's quite basic but a
decent start:
http://word.mvps.org/macWordNew/backupprefs.htm

Daiya

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Will:

Glad to hear that some Australian tax dollars are going to your cause, then

Again, where does in the online help say anything about the workings of the
"TOC generator" ? I have produced both outlined and plain vanilla documents
with Word 5.1 through Word 98 without running across these details.

DON'T get me started...

Too late...

A few years ago, Marketing Department (You read Dilbert, surely??) decreed
that Microsoft Office was to be made "easy to use" for the novice users out
there. This was too expensive to achieve by redesigning the product (they
were right about that: there's millions of lines of code in the thing, some
of it older than its users...).

So instead, they would simply not worry our pretty little heads with all
that nasty "detail" by removing information from the Help file. And
removing the paper manual entirely.

Now, every user of Word is destined to REMAIN a 'novice user' for the rest
of their lives, because the information they need to develop their skills is
not there when they need it. Duh!

If you get a look at the Help for Word 2000 or Word XP, whole new vistas
will open for you. The Word 2003 Help is nearly as good, but it's beginning
to suffer from the same disease: truncation ad absurdia. You can get the
Word 2003 Help online: Start here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/CH790018161033.aspx

But don't try it in Safari: those pages get up to some serious XML tricks
that are a bit beyond Safari. Most of it works in Firefox, and in IE for
Mac.

Word 2004 is very similar to Word 2003. A few of the high-end features
didn't make it across because they ran out of time and money. But you will
be a fairly serious Word Pro (oops, that's a competitor, isn't it...) before
you run into any serious differences.

Many thanks for the help, which has instantaneously given me a completely
outlined 110 page document when I had no hope of finding what I supposed to
be the hours necessary to get it into that format. (I had just hoped to
give it a T of C.)

Oh yeah. I love this product. It is, to my mind, the MOST powerful
word-processor on the planet. Behind that vacuous face covered in
badly-applied make-up, there beats a thumping great heart that will really
bring the bacon home for you on big documents, if you let it.

Cheers
--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410