How to add clickable hyperlinks to table of contents?

Question

I've looked at every community post about this, but still haven't found anything that will work. I'm trying to add clickable hyperlinks to my Table of Contents in Word. I've already generated the Table of Contents using Automatic Table 2. It has generated fine, but I need to add hyperlinks to the Table of Contents. I've followed several videos online (including one from Microsoft) that instruct me to highlight the portion I want to hyperlink, then go to the insert tab, select the link option, and select the heading that I want to link it to. I've done this on several headings within the table, and I can even go back into the heading and see that the hyperlink is there. However, the text in the table of contents is not clickable. Whenever I try to click the text, it just opens up the Table of Contents to edit it rather than taking me to the linked page. I've used AltF9 to check the code as suggested in one of the community posts I saw, and it is correct. Like I mentioned, I can also tell that the hyperlink is there when I go in to edit the hyperlink, but the text itself looks unchanged (there is no blue text or underline that sometimes indicates it is clickable) and the curser clicks inside of the heading as if to edit it instead of sending me to the correct place within the document (even when I have clicked out of the table of contents field).

Answer 1

I ended up just putting instructions by the "Table of Contents" saying to ctrl + click on headings to go straight to the content. Hopefully they will read it. LOL Thank you so much for your feed back!!

Answer 2

This strategy did allow me to click on the number without holding the Ctrl key down. However, using the mouse is difficult for me, and I want to be able to just move the cursor to inside the desired item in the TOC and then just hit the Enter key. This worked for years but suddenly is no longer working. I'm using Microsoft 365, Windows 10. My computer knowledge is limited (e.g. I have no idea what a \h switch is). Advice Appreciated.

Answer 3

This strategy did allow me to click on the number without holding the Ctrl key down. However, using the mouse is difficult for me, and I want to be able to just move the cursor to inside the desired item in the TOC and then just hit the Enter key. This worked for years but suddenly is no longer working. I'm using Microsoft 365, Windows 10. My computer knowledge is limited (e.g. I have no idea what a \h switch is). Advice Appreciated.

Here, clicking inside a hyperlinked TOC entry and pressing Enter does move to the hyperlinked item. I don't know why it isn't working on your system.

I am running a Microsoft subscription (365 for business, version 2406) under Windows 11.

Answer 4

Many thanks, Stefan, for this valuable tip :)

Before learning this, I believed it was necessary to create individual links in the table of contents !!

Leo

Answer 5

Many thanks, Stefan, for this valuable tip :)

Before learning this, I believed it was necessary to create individual links in the table of contents !!

Leo

You are welcome.