"TOC 1, TOC 2, TOC 3, etc., are built-in styles that you cannot delete or overwrite. You can modify them. Those are the styles that are applied to various levels in the TOC. They have nothing to do with formatting of text in the body of the document." Yes I agree with you. The problem is, I cannot now modify them when I want to create a custom ToC, I cannot get to the paragraph formatting in the first place due to "This style name already exists ...". The standard ToC styles work fine.



I am very experienced with generating ToC from having previously applied heading styles - I am an academic editor and have laid out and formatted hundreds of Master's and Doctoral theses in this work. I am experienced too with using mulitilevel lists.


There is something now intrinsically problematic within the within the built-in paragraph styles for Heading 1 to Heading 9 on the ribbon. When I click on one of them it immediately generates Heading,1 (for instance), and does not apply the style. When I use keystrokes the heading is formatted correctly, but the problem emerges when I get to the ToC, as explained above.


Very frustrating indeed.