How to Create a List of Tables in MS Word

Follow these steps…

(1) Give all your tables a caption.
(2) Click your cursor at where you’d like to place your List of Tables.
Its traditional location in a technical document is right after the Table of Contents (if any) and after the “List of Figures” (if any).
(3) Select the References tab from the main menu. Then click Insert Table of Figures to display the Table of Figures dialog box:
MS Word 2010 Table of Figures Dialog Box

(4) Clear the “Use hyperlinks instead of page numbers” check-box if you do not want to jump to a HTML destination accidentally.
(5) Select the “Show page numbers” check-box. Select the “Right align page numbers” check-box. Select a Tab Leader from the drop-down list.
(6) Select “Table” from the Caption Label drop-down list to display table captions in the Print Preview box. Then select the related “Include name and number” check-box:
MS Word 2010 Table of Figures Dialog Box 2
(7) Select a template from the Formats drop-down list.
(8) Click OK to display your List of Tables at where your cursor is.

7 Comments

  1. Lizzie on March 14, 2012 at 6:53 am

    Hi,
    I had a document with table 2.1, table 2.2, etc and the automatic list seems to only accept one number – is there any way of creating lists like that? It’s a PhD thesis so the numbering has to be in a specific style.
    Thanks



    • admin on March 14, 2012 at 8:45 am

      Lizzie, thanks for the question. You can always define a new numbering style and assigned it to a new list. Word 2010: on HOME tab, in the PARAGRAPH group, click the downward arrow next to the ORDERED LIST tool icon and select DEFINE NEW NUMBERING FORMAT. You can go pretty specific in defining a new numbering style. For example, in the DEFINE NEW NUMBER FORMAT dialog box you can add the word “Table” before each number so that the list reads “Table 1”, “Table 2” etc. Would that help? Ugur



      • rex on November 5, 2012 at 12:30 pm

        Hi
        I, like Lizzie, can’t get through with table labeling 1.1, 2.1, 2.3 etc



  2. azu on November 27, 2012 at 6:09 am

    How do you make a List of Figures with captions like Figure 1.1, Figure 1.2, and Figure 1.3 and Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2 and so on



  3. Manjunath Rao on December 29, 2012 at 4:45 pm

    I found it lot easier to just retype the numbers after the list of tables was created. The list did not list all the tables although I numbered the tables using the reference tab. The numbering did not come out well. It gave an error. Click on home tab etc etc. I just typed in the table number. The list of tables showed only 2 tables. I just copied, pasted and rewrote the table numbers and captions in the list of tables. That was lot easier than trying to figure out the technology. I am not sure what impact this handiwork method will have on the saved documents. Any comments?



  4. Richard on February 21, 2013 at 11:47 pm

    Hi I took the advice of another BB and created a quick style called ToT (for Table of Tables) and followed the advice above except that I used the modify button to point to the new style. I had already applied the style to all the Table captions and it worked perfectly.



  5. Mike Tucker on June 22, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    Excellent. Worked perfect.