How to add and update table of contents in Google Docs

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may want to create a table of contents to keep track of the content. This is extremely simple if you follow the steps below.

Use Headings

To create a table, we need to do it ourselves, Google Docs is not too high to know how to build a rich table of contents based on your content. We need to let Google Docs know the chapters and where to create the index so it can properly format the table of contents. This will be done using the Headings format in a text.

If you click Normal text at the top left of Google Docs, you'll see a range of options. The first thing we need is Headings.

This is what Google Docs will look for when creating a table of contents. When creating a table, Google Docs will set the headings of the same importance as Heading 1 - the highest level of the title, Heading 2 is the second highest title, . Any group used under the target Higher levels will be treated as a subheading. For example, if I put Alpha text in Heading 1, Beta in Heading 2 and Charlie Heading 3, Google Docs will get Alpha as the main title, Beta is the subheading of Alpha and Charlie is the title of Beta. .

Add and change titles

To create a title, you can place the cursor where you want the title, select the title, and then type the title. If you have typed the title, simply highlight the content and select the title you want to format for the text.

If you don't want the format, you can click the Normal text box, click the right arrow next to the title you want to change, then select Update 'Heading' to match to create the content for the title.

You can reset the title styles by clicking Options and then choosing Reset styles.

Create a table of contents

Once all titles have been defined, you can create a table of contents. Click Insert> Table of contents and select the type of table you want.

As you can see, Google Docs not only creates a table of contents but also formats them based on the title we used earlier:

You should think carefully about your document structure before using the title. For example, we can set the chapter headers as Heading 1 (Chapter 1: Processor), then the title definitions for each aspect with Heading 2 (Brands), then the more details of the title. 2 is Heading 3 (Intel, AMD). When we create the table of contents, it will display as follows:

Update the table of contents

When you add and edit documents, you will see that the table of contents does not automatically update. That does not mean that the catalog is faulty, but that you need to edit it manually. When you're done changing or adding text, there are two ways to update the table of contents in Google Docs. Right-click on the table of contents and select Update table of contents or click the Refresh button next to the table of contents.

The table of contents will then update what you changed in the text.

As you can see, when you want to create or update the table of contents in Google Docs, you do not need to manually create the table but just mark the appropriate titles, then with just a few steps, Google Docs will automatically perform the remaining work.

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Good luck!