All I want to know is how to manually allign page numbers for a table of contents or authorities

If you have used Word's built-in heading styles for your headings (or have assigned outline levels other than body text to the styles you're using), it should be very easy to use the built-in TOC dialog. I recommend, however, that instead of using one of the Automatic TOCs (which are created in a content control that is fussy to deal with), you select Custom Table of Contents:

This will open the Table of Contents dialog, which will allow you to customize some features of the TOC, but the standard three-level TOC will usually suffice. The tab stops will already be in place at the right margin, and there will be period leaders. For more information on creating TOCs, see http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/TOCTips.htm.

Dear @None Of Your Business, 

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.   

Based on my understanding, are you wanting to manually type a table of contents, where: 

• the page numbers are aligned to the right margin. 
• there are dot leaders (...) stretching from the entry title to the page number. 
• and all page numbers line up neatly and consistently? 

Did I understand that correctly? If I misunderstood anything, I would truly appreciate it if you could share a bit more detail, so I can understand your needs better and support you more accurately. 

If this is indeed what you want to do, here is how to set it up (like Q&A Assist mentioned above): 

Type your table‑of‑contents entries normally (as shown in the example below). No need to worry about spacing yet. 

Select all table of content lines. Go to Home > Paragraph (small arrow). In the bottom-left corner, choose Tabs. In Tab stop position, enter the right‑margin value (usually around 15 cm or 6.5", depending on your page size). Under Alignment, choose Right. Under Leader, choose 2 (the dotted line). Click Set > OK. 

After the right-aligned tab is set, I will place the cursor in Section A, press Tab > Word will automatically create the dot leaders to the right margin > then I type the page number. 

I’m not fully sure if I understood your exact intent. If I’m mistaken, please help clarify, or feel free to send me an example of what you want your table of contents to look like and a picture of your current TOC layout. This will help me understand more accurately and assist you better. 

Looking forward to your response!  

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