The Document Map is an easy navigation pane on the left-hand side of the MS Word document that helps us to navigate to a page or a heading in a lengthy Word document without scrolling. This article demonstrates how to use the document map and generate a table of content automatically.

Step 1: Click on the ‘View’ tab, find ‘Navigation Pane‘ in the ‘Show’ group.

Step 2: Check the box adjacent to the ‘Navigation Pane’ under the ‘View’ tab, and now Navigation pane is displayed on the left side of the Word document.

If you have many headings and subheadings in your lengthy Word document, you need to use the ‘Styles‘ option under the ‘Home’ Tab.

Step 3: Select main or section headings in your document [I’m selecting ‘Molecules of life’ as a section heading in my Word document] and on the ‘Home’ tab, find ‘Styles’ and click Heading 1. Now, the main heading displayed in left-sided Navigation Pane.

Step 4: Select subheadings in your document [I’m selecting ‘Carbohydrates’ as a subheading in my document as this comes under main heading ‘Molecules of life’] and on the ‘Home’ tab, find ‘Styles’ and click Heading 2. Now, subheading displayed in left-sided Navigation Pane.

Step 5: Like this, you need to select your main headings and different levels of subheadings and assign respective ‘Styles’ accordingly. Now your document map is ready where you can navigate where ever you want easily without scrolling in the lengthy Word document.

Now we’re going to learn how to generate a ‘Table of Contents’ automatically in a lengthy Word document. Microsoft Word has a handy tool where you can create the Table of Contents automatically provided if you are using Document Map.

Step 6: First, you need to decide where you want to insert ‘Table of Contents’ and then click on that page of the Word document.

Step 7: Click on the ‘References’ tab, then find the ‘Table of Contents’ and click on it.

Step 8: Select any desired built-in automatic ‘Table of Contents’ style. That’s it; you have generated a Table of Contents to your Word documents with page numbers automatically.

Step 9: If you make any changes in the Word documents, you need to update the Table of Contents. Click anywhere on the Table; the entire ‘Table of Contents’ is going to be highlighted and find ‘Update Table’ on the left top of the Table.

Step 10: Click on ‘Update Table’ and click ‘Update entire table’. Now, whatever changes in the documents, including page numbers updated in the Table of Contents.

Please watch the below-embedded video where I have demonstrated the use of document maps and the generation of a table of contents automatically.