LibreOffice Writer: How To Make Table of Contents

This tutorial explains steps to automatically create table of contents of a document in LibreOffice Writer. This way, your document presents an index of page titles & page numbers just like what you saw on books. I will supply example you can download & practice yourself.

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On LibreOffice: User Interface | Basic Saving | Basic Formatting | Table of Pictures | Cropping | Columns | Lorem Ipsum | Portable Version | A/F/S | Version 6.2 | Bibliography | Zotero 


Download

exercise (ODT)
final (PDF)
 

Requirements

To learn this exercise, you need new document with:

• 10 pages
• 10 first level headings
• 10 second level headings

Preparation

• Create 10 pages.
• First page, type "First Page".
• Second page, type "Second Page".
• Third page, type "Third Page".
• Continue until "Tenth Page". 

Process:

1. Create Headings 

• Click "First Page"
• Click Default Style combo box on toolbar > select Heading 1.
• Click "Second Page"
• Also apply Heading 1.
• Click "Third Page".
• Also apply Heading 1.
• Continue until "Tenth Page" got Heading 1 as well.

Process:
Change Default Style combobox into Heading 1 for every title text selected like below.


Result:
After changing them all, now your document should look like below.

2. Create Table of Contents

• Go to first page
• Create a new page
• Call table of contents

Process:
On LibreOffce 6.2, you find the menu under Insert > Table of Contents and Index > Table of Contents, Index, or Bibliography.


This menu opens Table of Contents dialog where you could control the title, how deep, and see the preview. For first time, all default options are okay and just click OK.



Result:
After making it, a Table of Contents appears on the first page.


Print Preview:
If you print preview your document, the table of contents looks normal without grey background.

3. Multiple Level

Now you know how to utilize Heading 1 as 1st level page-title. What you need to do is to type "Subtitle 1" until "Subtitle 10" right under every page-title. Then apply Heading 2 to all "Subtitles".

Process:
After applying Heading 2, right-click existing table of contents > Update Index > it updated.

Result:
After updating, current table of contents should have subtitles with tidy indentations like below.


Print preview:
Here's above table of contents looks like if being printed.

4. Real Examples

Here's an example table of contents from a book about computer. Notice there are 3 levels of heading, manual numbering, and 7 pages total.

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This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.