That all works, but even after I change the TOC to text in the manner you suggested, the entire TOC seems to remain a single field (if you click on any part of it, the whole thing is selected), and hovering the mouse over it causes Word to display the message that one can Ctrl-Click to follow a link to it (or ti the particular clicked on part of it), links which do not work when the TOC is posted to another document, but still claim to be there.

How can I turn it into true text and nothing to but text?

Peyton