Tables of contents and tables of authorities were most likely not required in undergraduate writing projects, so they can be entirely new ground for many first-year law students. Don’t fall into the trap of creating these tables from scratch— most word-processing programs can generate them automatically. Since instructions will vary depending on what product you are using (and in some cases, what version of the product), here are updated "how-to" links from some of the most popular word-processing programs: Microsoft Word (both PC and Mac versions), OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.
Program | Table of Contents | Table of Authorities |
Word 2011 (for Mac) | TOC | Index |
Word 2010 | TOC | TOA |
Word 2007 | TOC | TOA |
Word 2003 | TOC | TOA |
OpenOffice | TOC | TOA (unofficial user tip) |
WordPerfect | TOC | TOA |
Do you have a favorite formatting tip for new legal writers? Or do you use a word-processing program that we didn’t cover? Let us know in the comments section.