can i create an expandable / collapsable Table of Contents in word?

What is your purpose in wanting to do this? It is possible someone here can help you achieve that purpose with a different tool or method. I take it you are aware of the Navigation Pane, on which you can collapse levels easily.

i had overlooked that the navigation pane can function as an expandable Table of Contents effectively... so that will work for me... so thanks for pointing that out ! (it would still be nice to have the actual TOC in the body of the document be 'clickable so that you can collapse each sectino of the TOC). Im realizing that i probably dont understand the full power of TOC styles.?.. I have simply been using 'heading 1, 2 , 3 4' for all my paragraphs in the body and then letting word create a TOC... but the table is growing unwieldy at the top of my document

one other question... down in the body where i have my nested 'sections' with heading 1 paragraph, some heading 2 pararaghs etc... i though there was a way to hover over and expand /collapse ?

Thx!

For things other than headings, you want to be using body-text level styles. not heading styles.

The articles I linked tell much more about using the Table of Contents.

The Heading Styles are used to mark off parts of your text that fit logically together.

• Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly
• Moving/Reorganizing Pages in Microsoft Word
• Outlining in Microsoft Word

In a default Table of Contents, the first three levels of heading styles (and other paragraphs that are not heading styles but for which an outline level has been set). The formatting of the Table of Contents is set, for the most part, by the corresponding TOC styles, which are body-text level styles.

If you are going to be using Word much at all, you must become familiar with Styles. They are at the heart of how text gets formatted. Not doing this is asking for frustration.

• The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word
• Tips for Understanding Styles in Word by Shauna Kelly
• Managing Word Styles by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP

The Expand/Collapse works in Word versions starting with Word 2013. It depends on the Outline levels of paragraphs. This is almost always set in the Style, not in individual paragraphs. The highest level is Outline Level 1. Heading 1 style has that level. The lowest level is body text. The Normal and Body Text styles have that level, so do most other styles. If you have text set in the following styles...

Heading 1

Heading 2

Normal

Normal

Heading 3

Normal

Normal

Normal

Heading 1

Heading 2

Normal

• Collapsing at the first Heading 1 will conceal/collapse all text between that paragraph and the next Heading 1 style.
• Collapsing at the first Heading 2 will conceal/collapse all text between that paragraph and the next Heading 1 style. (If there had been another paragraph in Heading 2 before that Heading 1 style, it would collapse to the Heading 2 style instead..
• Collapsing at the Heading 3 level will collapse/conceal the text between that paragraph and the next Heading 1 style.
• So, if everything is Heading 1, nothing is collapsed. If everything is Heading 8, nothing gets collapsed.

Again, see Outlining in Microsoft Word and Moving/Reorganizing Pages in Microsoft Word.

By "numeric outline levels," Jay is referring to Level 1, Level 2, etc., as opposed to Body Text. These levels are shown in the Paragraph dialog:

What is your purpose in wanting to do this? It is possible someone here can help you achieve that purpose with a different tool or method. I take it you are aware of the Navigation Pane, on which you can collapse levels easily.

i had overlooked that the navigation pane can function as an expandable Table of Contents effectively... so that will work for me... so thanks for pointing that out ! (it would still be nice to have the actual TOC in the body of the document be 'clickable so that you can collapse each sectino of the TOC). Im realizing that i probably dont understand the full power of TOC styles.?.. I have simply been using 'heading 1, 2 , 3 4' for all my paragraphs in the body and then letting word create a TOC... but the table is growing unwieldy at the top of my document

one other question... down in the body where i have my nested 'sections' with heading 1 paragraph, some heading 2 pararaghs etc... i though there was a way to hover over and expand /collapse ?

Thx!

There is no simple way to do this. trip_to_tokyo has demonstrated that you can easily set the number of levels in your TOC field.

You could set the TOC 1 - TOC 9 styles to have Outline levels.

If you do that, though, you are going to want to change your TOC field itself to only use Styles and TC fields, not levels or you will get a positive feedback loop in the default TOC and crash Word. It will be creating new lines in the TOC referring to the lines in the TOC, ad nauseum.

Also note that collapsing the TOC will have the effect of changing your pagination unless you restart numbering after the Front Matter. Numbering Front Matter by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP

What is your purpose in wanting to do this? It is possible someone here can help you achieve that purpose with a different tool or method. I take it you are aware of the Navigation Pane, on which you can collapse levels easily.

You also could create separate TOC fields at the beginning of each section for that section and have the main TOC with less detail, fewer levels.

See:

• TOC Tips and Tricks by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• How to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly
• How to Make a Table of Contents in Word - video by Kevin Stravert

i have a large document will my my notes

it has a TOC with hyperlinks to the the different sections

however the TOC is huge now , can i format it so that sections of the TOC itself can collapse?

See image below for 1 way in which this might be done: just change the Show levels: setting.