I've never had a problem with the Table of Contents tool before, but today it is not working as I expect it to do.



My O365 Word document is formatted with styles, 'heading 1', 'heading 2', and 'heading 3'.

The items with these styles appear in the Navigation sidebar perfectly.

However, they are not being discovered by the TOC, which displays the message "No table of contents entries found".

I just can't see what is going wrong with them. Searches on Google are almost entirely about the reverse problem, where they are included on the TOC but don't appear in the navigation menu.

Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks, Graham

What have you tried so far?
Have you updated the TOC?
Have you examined the TOC's field code to ensure that it is correct?

@Italophile: That error message pops up when you try to insert a TOC and it is not finding anything to list.

@Graham: Can you attach a sample file with the problem and at least one of the headings? Directions: Attach a Sample File Demonstrating the Problem - Here's How

As Italophile implied, the TOC, in Word, is a field. It is possible to create such a field that will not look at these headings, but the defaults certainly do.


References:

• How to create a table of contents in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly
• TOC Tips and Tricks by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• Generating a Table of Contents (in one of my pages - covers some things not in the others but the others are better IMO)
• Dealing with Fields in Microsoft Word

@Italophile and @Charles Kenyon:

Thank you both for leaping to my aid. Since posting my message, I discovered the solution to the problem.

I closed down all instances of Word, and then reopened the main document. All the formatting was retained and correctly applied. I then tried updating the TOC and the Index and this time they both worked perfectly.

I've no idea what goes on in the background, but this seems to have required a complete close for it to work.

Just in case anyone is reading this and would like one quick tip too... I found that there were several timeout errors subsequently as the files were stored on One Drive. Moving them to my PC (not just available through OneDrive) resolved this too.

Thanks again, Graham