This is Richard from WordifyScience, welcome to the first in a series of formatting guides. One of the challenges that we consistently see coming up and need fixing in scientific documents is the Table of Contents. Whether you are writing a scientific report, a Master Thesis or a Manual, you will need to consider each respective reader, and the fact that many will want to skip ahead to certain sections. This is especially important when the scope, methods, results and conclusions sections need to be re-read, compared and aligned. The Table of Contents (TOC) is your central navigation tool and provides this crucial oversight in every scientific document. This blog post aims to provide a quick guide to fixing or adding a TOC into your MS Word document.
At the end of this post, you will find a link where you can download your instructional step by step guide.
Here at WordifyScience, we often get presented a document to quickly fix the Table of Contents (TOC) or Table of Figures/Tables, so that the document can be more accessible to other readers: team members, internal departments or external organisations. We usually receive these reports in MS Word format or PDF and are tasked with resolving formatting issues, so that scientists and researchers can concentrate on the actual writing, be it a study document for a regulatory submission or a manuscript submission to a scientific journal.
Challenge #1: Various authors editing from different machines
One of the main challenges for submitted reports is that many authors edit the same document on a variety of machines that have differing default settings, something to watch out for, as this can pull apart some of the formatting. We therefore advise our clients to finalise the document first before making the last formatting touches.
We know that regulatory bodies and scientific journals have a variety of different and unique formatting requirements, so it is always advisable to dedicate extra time on these formatting tasks as a final step before submission. In this last step, we double-check all of the often tedious mini steps required, such as page layout and font sizes, table and figure layouts, use of title cases vs. sentence cases, footnotes and scientific references, correct use of abbreviations, styles for headings, and arrangements of individual chapters. The list seems endless and the devil is in the detail!
This blog post highlights essential elements for just one of the formatting tasks, which is to create or update an existing Table of Contents. The TOC is your central navigation tool and provides crucial oversight in every scientific document.
If you are looking for an in-depth step by step guide, please skip to the bottom of this blog post, where
the full step by step guide using MS Word on a Mac or Windows machine.
Challenge #2: Set heading styles for navigation pane and TOC
I am going to assume that the page layout and margins have been set. The part that we can set next is the styles for the headings. This is important, as word pro
cessing software uses this feature to present navigation tools, such as the navigation/bookmark pane and TOC.
Depending on the index table that you would like to insert - a Table of Contents, a Table of Tables, or a Table of Figures - you will need to use heading styles as well as figure and table captions. We will look at the Table of Contents first, for which the heading styles are the central elements.
The heading style that you define will show how a selected heading will be displayed. Heading 1 is usually the largest and highest level, and is often displayed in bold formatting, sometimes in ALL CAPS format, and with a slightly bigger font size than the following sub-headings. Adding sub-level headings allows you to break down your structure into smaller branches, like a tree structure where topics that are related to a main topic are further grouped into sub topics.
The figure on the right shows 4 different
styles, starting with the Normal style, which is usually the style used for plain document text, and which does not show in your TOC.
Heading 1 has the biggest font size, whereas Heading 2 has a smaller and less wide font, and Heading 3 has the smallest of all. You can also play with different colours or formatting features like italic, underline or bold, to make the difference between the individual headings clearer. We recommend to give your heading styles a distinct name, such as Heading1_Manuscript. This will make it easier for you when you define which styles to use in your custom TOC (see section below).
Below is one example of an introduction structure in a TOC:
Introduction (level 1)
Background (level 2)
Current State (level 3)
Historic Findings (level 3)
Identifying a research topic (level 2)
Scope of the Challenge (level 3)
Target Areas (level 3)
Suggested steps to be taken (level 2)
Challenge #3: Outline level hierarchies
Once the heading styles have been set, they will appear in your navigation pane and in your Table of Contents. The next step is to set the outline level hierarchy so that the system presents the headings in the correct way; this is usually found in the paragraph settings where you can also set the indentation and spacing.
Challenge #4: Inserting a Table of Content (TOC)
Now that we have checked that the headings have the correct outline level, we can go ahead and insert a TOC. Depending on the software you use, you will find it either in the references tab or under 'Insert => Index and Tables...'. If you cannot find it, use the search function of your software to get to the right menu.
The insert TOC function should give you some options. We suggest inserting a custom TOC.
With a custom TOC, you will then be able to modify the styles and more importantly check that the correct styles are set.
Any default heading styles (named heading 1, 2 and 3) can be removed, as these may have found their way into your document and could create havoc with level hierarchy!
Here are some of the features we can select:
show page numbers right aligned (see table of figures image below)
use Tab lead as "…." (if we want the d
ots showing leading up to the page numbers as in the image below)
set the TOC lines as hyperlinks so that the TOC has clickable navigation, meaning that a click on the respective chapter will bring you directly to that chapter
Now we can go ahead and insert the TOC. It may look similar to this one which we have taken from a Master Thesis (recommended read in this context):
Please note that the styles MS Word uses to display the TOC are usually different from your heading styles. We recommend to check and amend them - they can be found in the styles tab. It is as simple (or as complicated) as that, the navigation of the document is now a lot easier and more convenient for both you as writer and the reader.
Challenge #5: Inserting a Table of Tables (TOT) or Table of Figures (TOF)
The Table of Tables (TOT) and Table of Figures (TOF) are done in a very similar fashion. What are the heading styles for your TOC, are the table and figure captions for your TOT and TOF.
if you haven’t used these, now is a good time to start. For most word processing software, simply right click on the table or figure; once it has been selected, choose the 'insert caption' option.
For tables, it is standard practice to position the caption above the table, whereas for figures it is standard practice to position the caption below.
Keep the caption name as default (ie, Figure 1) as you will add a specific caption title after MS Word will have inserted the caption field and number for you.
Now you are ready to insert the actual Table of Tables/Figures. It usually is an option in the Table of Contents menu. Sometimes the Table of Tables is hidden in the 'Insert Table of Figures' menu, where you then choose to display all captions labelled as 'table'.
This menu has very similar options to the TOC menu, e.g., show page numbers and choose right align.
For more detailed instructions, we have developed a short step by step guide for how to do this for both Windows and Mac machines. You can download the step by step formatting guide here:
Please feel free to reach out if you require support with your documentation. We also offer formatting workshops that can be custom-tailored to the needs of your organisation. Here at WordifyScience, we enjoy working with a wide range of clients with differing needs that all trust us to perfect the way they present science and make it the most clear and accessible to the scientific community.
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