I have written a 300 page MS word file consisting of a series of transcribed lectures. Of the 40 lectures, only 32 had recordings which I could access. I could not locate recordings for the remaining eight lectures. As a result, for these eight lectures there is no transcription i.e. no chapter in the book. Nonetheless I wish to include them in the table of contents (TOC) to show readers where those lectures would have been located in the TOC and what their titles are. For each of these eight, instead of a page number, I wish to insert "sound file unavailable". I've created a TOC using the automated tool in MS Word 2016. After having created that TOC, is there a way for me to add these eight lines in their respective locations in the TOC?



Or would I have to discard the automated tool and opt for making the TOC manually? This sounds difficult and thus I would far prefer to use the automated tool if possible. But if there is no option except to manually create the TOC, would I then have the option there to add these eight lines in their respective locations?

The TOC is produced using a field. Once you are certain that the TOC is as you wish and you are not going to add more to it. You can update the TOC field and then unlink it. This will convert the field to text. You can then manually add more text into it as required.

If subsequently you make changes to the document, you would have to delete the TOC, insert a new TOC field and repeat the process.

__________________
Graham Mayor - MS MVP (Word) (2002-2019)
Visit my web site for more programming tips and ready made processes www.gmayor.com

That is great news! So it is the unlink command which converts it to text? I just googled it, and found this:

1. Select the Table of Contents (TOC).
2. Press CTRL + SHIFT + F9

Is this the proper way?

And once it is unlinked, is there a way to link it again? Or does one have to again make the TOC as you mentioned?

Is there a reason you can't just insert suitable headings at the appropriate place in the document? That way, you wouldn't need to unlink the Table of Contents. To differentiate them from the others, you could include the word 'unavailable' and, if you use a different Heading Style, have the Table of Contents not display the page # for that level.

Another option would be to bookmark each of the ranges for which content is available, then insert a separate Table of Contents for each bookmarked range and, between them, insert your static content.

Either way, no unlinking would be required. Once unlinked, there is no way to relink a Table of Contents - it has to be recreated.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

See:

• Generating a Table of Contents - Complex Documents
• How to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly
• TOC Tips and Tricks by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP

If I were to insert headings like this in the document, those headings would be printed wouldn't they, and would therefore each require their own page in the printed text. If that is the case, I wasn't till now planning on dedicating space in the book for the unavailable chapters. Just had wanted to indicate it in the TOC. But I will think about this, thanks.

Would there be a way to have the word "unavailable" appear in the TOC in place of where the page number would have been?

I will review the links provided by Charles Kenyon, which will likely give more insight into how this sort of option could be set up. Thanks.

If some or all are consecutive, those could be on the same page.
With careful heading & TOC Style formatting, yes.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Look into use of the TC field as well as styles. This is invisible on the page but shows up in the TOC. Here is a page specifically on those.

TC Fields by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP

As per Macropod's suggestion, I have decided to go ahead and insert suitable headings at the appropriate place in the document for the eight chapters (i.e. those eight which will not be getting published due to absence of sound file).

In this connection Macropod had written,

I am using heading 1 for all the other chapters; what heading should I use for these, and how do I set the TOC so as to not display the page # for that level?

I also have a couple of other related questions here:
1. In the TOC I would like to have a number preceding each chapter name, to give a running count of chapter number. That's pretty common I think so my guess is there may be a setting for that although I could not find it in the "edit field" options for the TOC.

2. This book is written using both Hindi and English. As such at the beginning of each chapter, the chapter title is provided in both languages: The top line in Hindi, and just underneath that in English. What I had done is to assign each of these two titles the status of "heading 1". As a result, in the TOC there are two listings for each chapter: One in Hindi, and then one in English. Both listings provide the same page number. Like this:

फ़सल का प्रबन्ध, वृष्टि के समय............................................... .........................62
Management of crops during rain.............................................. .............62

Is there a way for me to get the Hindi and English titles to appear in the TOC on a single line one following the other, with one page number listing? I tried going to the beginning of a chapter, highlighting both chapter names together, and assigning the heading 1 status to them together. But it seems that, perhaps due to their being on separate lines at the beginning of the chapter, Word assigns them separate heading status and separate lines in the TOC.

3. Optimally as mentioned I would like to have the two headings appear on the TOC on one line, separated by a back slash. For example, here is what I want:

फ़सल का प्रबन्ध, वृष्टि के समय / Management of crops during rain ......................62

In that case you might use Heading2 and format it to look the same as Heading1. In addition to adding a tab after the name, followed by 'unavailable', you'd add the \w switch and an \n 2-2 switch to the TOC field.
That can be done quite easily by giving Heading 1 Style a suitable numbering scheme, via the Numbering tools.
If all you have between these two headings is a paragraph break, simply replace that with a space and a manual line break.
Following on from the above, unless you add the / to the heading, the TOC can't generate it. You could however, have:

फ़सल का प्रबन्ध, वृष्टि के समय
Management of crops during rain.............................................. .............62

by adding the \x switch to the TOC field.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

If I use Heading 2 for those unpublished chapters, how do I get Word to refrain from indenting the listing for it in the TOC? I went into "modify style" to change the parameters of Heading 2. There I went into "paragraph", and changed "outline level" to level 1. But even after saving the changes to this parameter, it doesn't remain but reverts back to the outline level 2 setting and therefore continues to indent the Heading 2 listings in the TOC. I would like to use Heading 2 in order to selectively stop the page numbers from showing in the TOC for these unpublished chapters as you have guided above. However, I do not want these chapter listings to be indented in the TOC.

When I implement numbering in the TOC, the numbers are not in the font I want. Furthermore, implementation of this chapter numbering in the TOC changes the font of the entire TOC. The Hindi in the TOC has a particular font (Nirmala), and the English has a partiular font (Times New Roman); I do not want these fonts to be altered when I implement numbering in the TOC. The way I implemented numbering was to select the TOC, and in the "Tell me what you want to do" window, type "numbering". An option comes for numbering, and when I click on that, it numbers the entire TOC for me. I tried to locate the "Numbering Tools" to which you refer, but could not find it and when googling it as well did not come up with anything. If there is a better way to set up the numbering which will not wreak this chaos with the fonts, kindly direct me to where I can read about how to do it.

Please also note that I want all the chapters to be numbered, not just those formatted with Heading 1. That is, the unpublished chapters should also be numbered in the TOC.

I would very much like to have the TOC appear as you have displayed above. I pressed alt-F9 to display the TOC field code, added \x to it, and then again pressed alt-F9 to return to the TOC view. With the TOC selected, I clicked "update field". After doing so, nothing had changed. Neither in the chapters still having a paragraph break, nor in the chapter in which I had replaced a paragraph break with a space and a manual line break (shift-enter).

You don't do anything with the outline level; all you need do is modify the indents applicable to the TOC2 style.
Again, modify the relevant TOC Style to suit. The numbering can be formatted differently from the rest of the text, via Styles>Manage Styles>Modify>Format>Numbering>Define New Number Format>Font.
Modify the Heading2 Style so that it is visually the same as the Heading1 Style in all respects.
I also said as a precursor to that:

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

When I implement this in the text of the book it looks fine. But what it achieves in the TOC is that the Hindi and English all appear on one line. Whereas, I want the TOC to look as you showed, with the Hindi on one line and the English just below it, and the dotted line coming from the English running over to the page number. Like this:

फ़सल का प्रबन्ध, वृष्टि के समय
Management of crops during rain.............................................. .............62

And, having formatted the heading as described, did you also add the \x switch and refresh the TOC?

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Yes, I did.

After so doing, the Hindi and English are both appearing on the same line.