How to sort the table of contents in Microsoft Word

So, you have made some notes using Microsoft Word, and programmed a table of contents, but now it is becoming a mess, as those topics are not listed in alphabetical order.

Help!

That happens to me often. So much so, that I finally did some research on the subject and found a solution to my dilemma.

My table of contents consists of headers and sub headers.
I wanted to, at least, reorder the headers representing my major topics.

Well, I found out that I can't really list my table of contents alphabetically, unless my topics are written in that way.

What I can do is to rearrange the topics themselves. Something that MS Word will help me with.

However, sorting topics is only appropriate if, the comprehension of those topics, doesn't depend on the sequence they were originally written.

Here's how you sort the major topics to begin with.
Warning: Please try it on a copy of your document until you know how to do it.

• First, switch the view mode to Outline (this is very important, otherwise you will make a mess).
• Then, place the cursor on the left side of your first major topic header.
• Now, press the following key combination to select everything:
  CTRL SHIFT END.
• Next, press the HOME tab.
• Then, in the paragraph group, click on the sort group (the A/Z icon).
• When the dialog box pops up, accept the default values by clicking on the OK button.
• Your major headers are now sorted.
• Next, change the view mode to your regular mode such as, for example, Print View.
• Unselect the text by clicking anywhere on the page.

And now you can update your table of contents.

• To update your table of contents,
• right-click on the table, 
• and choose "Update Field" 
• and then choose "Update the Entire Table".

Great, you’re all done.

What we did here, was sorting the pages in the document by topic names.

Now, can you do the same for subtopics?

Yes, you just need to be more selective when you are highlighting the area to be affected.

Here's what I mean: 

You will have to pick individual topics and sort its sub-topics as described above. 

The only difference here, is that now you place your cursor at the left of the first subtopic, instead of major topic.

Perhaps I should make a video about it.

Okay, I will.

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