Hi Bryan,

The TOC Styles used by Word for its Table of Contents (TOC) field have no effect on the Headings to which they refer. No changes you make to the TOC formatting will have any effect on the headings. Do note, though, that simply selecting a string in the TOC and changing its formatting will only last until the next time the TOC field updates. For any formatting changes to the TOC to be retained, you'll need to modify the corresponding TOC Style.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]