How to format a report in MS word 2007/2010

For the benefit of my MBA friends, I thought of writing an article on how to create table of contents (TOC) and use of page numbering for different sections in a report. (Steps are for MS Office 2007, I believe it’s the same for Office 2010)

1. Prepare the styles for the headings

On the home tab, in the styles group right click on heading 1 and click modify to open the Modify Style dialog box, change the formatting of the heading from here (Font, font size, etc...). If you want to have numbering for the headings (ex: 1. Introduction, 2. Literature Survey, 3. Critical Evaluation, etc...), click on format, click numbering and select a appropriate numbering format. Click OK to apply the settings.

Follow the same procedure for rest of the sub headings (Heading 2, heading 3, heading 4, and the list goes on)

If a heading style is not shown in the style group on the home tab, suppose if heading 3 is not shown, click on the down most arrow (refer below screen-shot, button inside red colour square shape) and click apply style. Type the style name you want, in this case Heading 3, click modify for formatting and modify the formatting as you wish.

2. Change text styles of the headings

Select the text you wish to make as a heading and select the appropriate heading type from the styles group on the home tab. Repeat this procedure for all the headings in your report.

3. Insert Table of Contents

Once you have marked all the headings with appropriate styles, click on the beginning of the report, on the page layout tab, in the page setup group, click on breaks and select next page option. 

Then on the reference tab, click on table of contents click on insert table of contents, if you wish you could do formatting for the table of content from here. Click OK to create the table of contents.

Once the table of contents is created, you could right click on it, click Update field, select entire table and click OK to update the TOC with what ever the changes you make after the first creation.

4. Format page numbers differently in different sections of a document

Suppose if you were to use roman numerals for the page numbering before introduction page (Title page, Table of contents, etc…) and use Arabic numerals for rest of the pages.

Since a section break was inserted before creating the table of contents, now there are two sections in the report.

On the insert tab, in the header and footer group click on page number and select format page numbers. Then select Roman numeral format.  Again click on page number and select bottom of page and choose a format, on the design tab, navigation group click on next section and then click on link to previous. 

Then click on the page number again in the header and footer group, click on format page numbers, select Arabic number format, select start at option and type 1 and click OK, click close Header and footer to exit from designer.

5. Insert a title page

On the insert tab, in the pages group, click on Cover Page and select a suitable design. Enter details as you wish.

Congratulations you have done it !!!!