Now that I'll buy! IMO this is a real defect in the Index and Tables dialog.
It should be possible, with the insertion point in an existing TOC, to
revisit the dialog and make changes. You can do this, of course, but then
Word asks if you want the "new" TOC to replace the existing one, which is
the only option. While that superficially accomplishes what you're after,
unless the problem of multiplying bookmarks has been solved (and I can't
recall that it has), then every time you replace the TOC, you've created a
whole new slew of bookmarks to clutter up the file. This is why it is really
useful for users who need TOCs often to learn to edit the TOC field (and
there are some effects that can be created *only* by doing that).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Stefan Blom" wrote in message
...
An additional comment...

Suzanne, it is correct that the first paragraph of my initial response
was self-contradictory. It could more clearly be stated in the
following way: "If you want to revisit the Index and Tables dialog box
without creating a *second* TOC, you must delete the existing TOC
first; then you can recreate it with different settings."

--
Stefan Blom


"Stefan Blom" wrote in message
...
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
If you want to revisit the Index and Tables dialog box without
actually creating a new TOC, you must delete the existing TOC
first;
then you can recreate it with different settings.

Hmm, that's seems a bit self-contradictory; if you delete the
existing TOC,
then you *must* create a new one.


My point was that for inexperienced users, deleting and recreating
the
TOC provides a way to modify TOC settings without messing with TOC
field codes.

Usually, however, it
is quite sufficient to *update* the existing TOC to reflect
changes in
your document.

Not if you want to change the TOC itself (include more levels,
omit
some
headings). Updating merely changes the TOC, as is, to reflect the
current
document content. If that content includes Level 1 paragraphs that
you don't
want in the TOC, there are ways to deal with this outside the TOC
dialog,
but the easiest way is to clear the 1 from the style in the TOC
Options
dialog.

Again, for inexperienced users, it is well worth stating explicitly
that updating a TOC is a possibility, if the goal is to make it
reflect the current document structure of a modified document. Of
course I didn't mean to say that updating would change the settings
(that would indeed be strange!). Perhaps making such a comment
didn't
help in this particular case, though.

--
Stefan Blom



--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Stefan Blom" wrote in message
...
If you want to revisit the Index and Tables dialog box without
actually creating a new TOC, you must delete the existing TOC
first;
then you can recreate it with different settings. Usually,
however, it
is quite sufficient to *update* the existing TOC to reflect
changes in
your document.

In order to force an update of a table of contents, do the
following:
right-click the TOC and choose to "Update field" (or,
alternatively,
place the cursor inside the TOC and press F9). If Word presents
a
dialog box, make sure that you specify that the entire table
should be
updated.

--
Stefan Blom


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
I believe your problem lies in "when I reopen the dialog box
to
specify the
TOC entries." You basically can't revisit this dialog. When
you
do,
Word
wants to create a new TOC from scratch, so everything is
always
set
back to
the default. You need to either get it right the first time or
learn
to edit
the TOC field manually; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TOCSwitches.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to
the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Annamarie Pluhar" wrote in
message
...
Hi

Thanks for responding. I've made progress and if my stupid
mistakes can
help
anyone else out I'm confessing. Mind you I'm working with a
document that
I
inherit from a colleague.

"Stick" in the sense that I specify the TOC entries for the
styles
and the
levels I want, (Insert/Tables and Indexes/Table of
Contents/Options)
click
OK, and when I reopen the dialog box to specify the TOC
entries
they
aren't
there. I've done this over and over. However, I missed
noticing
that
while
I was defining the styles "Chapter Title" and Chapter
Sub-title"
the
Header
1, Header 2 and Header 3 were already assigned to TOC 1, 2
and
3
respectively.

Next problem is said colleague defined Chapter Subtitle with
left
and
right
indents that caused a single column of characters to be the
TOC 2
entry.

Once I figured that out it's been working fine.

Thanks.


"Jezebel" wrote in message
...


TOC function won't work at all. Is this because I don't
have
the .dot
file
for the file on my computer?
Every time I try to set TOC levels they don't "stick".

Stick in what sense? No, you don't need the DOT file on
your
computer.
Specify the TOC entries using styles with the levels you
want
(eg use
Heading 1, Heading 2, etc). Define the TOC styles to look
the
way you
want.
That's all there is for a vanilla TOC.


Colleague also tells me that the doc adds continuous
section
breaks
for
no
reason that he can find. I don't know what his skill
level
is,
but he
said
he was on phone with MS for 2 hours. Perhaps he simply
has a
broken/buggy
template?

Word doesn't add section breaks for *no* reason. (The
reason
might be
obscure, but there will be one ... although it's not a
problem
I've ever
encountered.) Whatever the cause, it has nothing to do
with
his
template.