If you are working on a long Google Docs document that needs to have a table of contents, then you can easily create a table of contents right inside Google Docs. In this post, I am going to show you how to make a table of contents in Google Docs.
Make a table of contents in Google Docs
Before creating a table of contents, you need to make sure your document is properly formatted and each heading is marked as headings, such as h1, h2, or h3. The table of contents feature will create a list from the text that is marked as headings, otherwise, it will not work. It’s really easy to add headings in Google Docs. Just select the line which is suppose to be the heading in your document and then open the Style drop-down menu at the top and select your preferred heading style from the list.
Once the document is properly formatted, click on the area where you want to see the table of contents. Now click on the Insert menu at the top and hover the mouse cursor over the Table of contents option. There will be two types of table of contents here, one with page numbers and the other with blue links.
The one with page numbers shows the number of the page on which the specific heading is listed, so you can move to that page manually. And the one with blue links creates clickable links to the headings that users can click to automatically move to that heading. Choose your preferred table of contents type and the table of contents will be created using all the headings in your document. Making changes to the headings will not update in the table of contents, so you will have to create a new table of contents if you change headings or their text.
Bonus
If you want to use a table of contents in Google Docs for personal use, then a Google Docs add-on can be very useful. Table of contents is a Google Docs add-on that creates a table of contents of your document and shows it in the sidebar. As it’s in the sidebar, you can click on any link to quickly move to that section while working on any page. It’s also more customizable than the built-in Google Docs table of contents feature.
Wrapping up
It’s really easy to create a table of contents in Google Docs as long as you have formatted the document properly. However, do keep in mind that the table only works in Google Docs itself, you can’t copy/paste in another document creator app and expect the table of contents to work fine. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below.
