A Word table of contents is a field, not ordinary typed text. It reads the document heading styles and page numbers at the time it is updated, so edits later can leave it out of sync until you refresh it.
Does this affect you?
Use this for Word for Microsoft 365, Word 2021, and Word 2019 on Windows or Mac when an automatic table of contents no longer matches the document. This does not apply to a table of contents typed manually.
Update the whole table of contents
Use this after adding, deleting, or renaming headings.
- Click inside the table of contents.
- Click Update Table, or right-click and choose Update Field.
- Choose Update entire table.
- Click OK.
Word rescans heading styles throughout the document and rebuilds both the entry list and page numbers.
Update page numbers only
Use this when headings stayed the same but text edits changed pagination.
- Click inside the table of contents.
- Click Update Table or right-click and choose Update Field.
- Choose Update page numbers only.
- Click OK.
This is faster in long documents because Word does not rebuild the list of heading titles.
More control
Fix missing headings
A missing entry is usually not using a real Heading style. Select the heading text, apply Heading 1, Heading 2, or the appropriate style from Home > Styles, then update the whole table.
Use the keyboard shortcut
Click in the table of contents and press F9 on Windows, or Fn+F9 on many Macs. Word still asks which type of update to run.
Update before printing
In Word options, enable Update fields before printing so page-number fields refresh before documents are printed. Still check the TOC manually before sharing a final PDF.
If update does nothing
Click directly inside the shaded TOC field. If no field shading appears, the table may have been converted to plain text and needs to be recreated from References > Table of Contents.
Sources
- Microsoft Support – Update a table of contents (2025)
- Microsoft Support – Insert a table of contents (2025)
- Microsoft Support – Create an accessible table of contents (2024)