Updating an Entire TOC from a Macro

If you have a document that contains a table of contents (TOC), and you update the fields in the entire document, Word asks if you want to update the entire table or just the page numbers in the table. (Click here to see a related figure.) This occurs because TOCs are implemented through the use of a field, and when you update all fields you are telling Word you also want to update the field underlying the TOC.

You can update a TOC using a macro by utilizing the TablesOfContents collection. Each item in the collection represents a single TOC in the document. (In most documents the collection will consist of only a single item.) To update the entire TOC, you use this format of the command:

ActiveDocument.TablesOfContents(1).Update

The Update method is what does the work; it updates the TOC. If you want to update only the page numbers in the TOC, you use an entirely different method:

ActiveDocument.TablesOfContents(1).UpdatePageNumbers

Whenever you use commands like these in a macro, it is a good idea to make sure that there is actually a TOC in the document before you try to do any updating. The easiest way to do this is to just check the Count property for the collection, as shown here:

If ActiveDocument.TablesOfContents.Count = 1 Then _
  ActiveDocument.TablesOfContents(1).Update