Discussion on:

Create a table of contents in Microsoft Word with custom styles

Table of contents used to be a big deal when I was in school ? such a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
But with the proliferation of the Internet, e-mail, HTML, and blogging, the venerable TOC seems to have lost some of its importance.

Do you use a table of contents in your documentation? Is it as important as it once was, or has it become old-fashioned?

school also long ago, etc.

Online TOC may only be site map, but complicated doco needs TOC on and offline. For some simple documents a manually created TOC may actually be easier, but for long, complex manuals an automated TOC is still necessary, at least in my book. ;^)

This is not directly on topic but I cannot find anywhere else to make this point.
There once was a Print option to allow all the discussions to be put on one page. This has now disappeared. Why - it was EXTREMELY convenient?

I just clicked the "Discuss" link at the end of the article to open a new window onto the discussions. Then at the bottom of the first message text are "Post a Reply," "Subscribe," and "Print." The Print link formats all comments into the page(s) I think you're looking for. I use it all the time, too.

You obviously haven't read a reference manual in a long time or
you would know how important and useful a TOC is. Do you
really want to scan a large document to find what you are
looking for. And if you had listened, all those years ago in
school, you would know that you should start by reading the
TOC to get an idea of what's in the document/book.

I'm sure I listened, but I have forgotten so much.

To clarify, what I was wondering is if hyperlinking and other navigation tools have reduced the need for a TOC, especially with regard to online publication?

I am certain that in large printed documents, TOCs continue to be a requirement.

Should a blog have an index or TOC?

I write technical books and manuals with an average of 300+ pages, and there I absolutely need the TOC, both entire-doc-based using specific styles and levels, as well as subparts-based using bookmarks.

I also had to write a macro that modified the TOC entries so that I can have BIG, 24pt chapter numbers along with regular 12pt TOC descriptions, restoring a behaviour in O2K that has unfortunately disappeared in OXP and O2K3.

For me - and for the readers of my manuals - long live the TOC (but not the bugs).

hello everyone,
My question is as follows:
how do I change the toc entries styles to an existing custom style, I know I can use the insert table of contents then choose modify and change the different TOC built-in styles, but I don`t want to change them I want to use a new style.
Also, on the same dialog box there are two buttons that I think will allow me to do exactly what I want: new and delete. But for some reason they are disabled.
Any help would be nice.