Forum Discussion
Custom TOC nightmare
Hi, really need some help or I might go out of my mind!
I'm formatting an ebook for KDP. Has to have a custom TOC at the beginning. I've done this many times (over 40 in fact!) and never had a problem, but this time KDP didn't recognise my TOC, says "Missing"
So I went back, re did the TOC from the beginning, followed all the steps. Highlighted each heading and updated Heading one to match, typed in Table of Contents at the beginning, went to References and Auto table of contents 1, then back to References and selected Custom to remove "show pages" and set levels to 1, as Kindle wants. the custom table appears
But KDP won't accept it. Still says Missing.
Looked for help online and one post said to update the TOC, which I hadn't done. So I went back.
Now, I'd highlighted and tagged all chapter headings to Heading One, of course. KDP says to create an Auto 1 version of the TOC first, so I did it all again, and this first TOC, the A1 version, I can update and "update all fields" comes up like normal. When I take the next step and change the TOC to a custom table, as directed by KDP, I cannot update it. No dialogue box appears, nothing. I tried toggle field codes and on the custom table the fields are fine, as they should be.
Track changes is off, I've tried re-doing the table many times and the result is the same. I contacted Microsoft help and an operator came into my computer and reloaded Office and 365 and told me this would fix the problem, and it didn't. I contacted them again and the operator told me to do all the steps I had done. Then he told me to try a manual table by typing in the field codes. I did this and nothing happened when I pressed F9 to initiate. He told me to come here.
The TOCs were inputted using References, Table of contents, I did not input them manually (aside from the time I tried the above advice).
I have tried going back through and tagging the chapter headings to Heading One again, but the same thing just keeps happening; it will update the table if it is Automatic Table 1, but not when I change it to custom. And it has to be custom because ebooks don't have the page numbers showing, and only use Heading One.
F9 also does nothing to update the table, and I've tried both Update Table and Update Fields and neither work. I've tried opening the document in a new file, and the same problem happens.
So, please help. Why would Word not be updating the custom table, when it will update the Automatic?
Any help appreciated.
2 Replies
Press Alt+F9 to display the domain code, change {TOC} to { TOC \o “1-3” \h \z } (the number is the title level), press F9 to update the domain and save it as a .dotx template, if the formatting is messed up, select the paragraph and press Ctrl+Q to clear the formatting, and then re-set the style.
To fix the issue with KDP not recognizing your custom Table of Contents (TOC), you should manually insert the TOC field code instead of relying on Word’s built-in custom TOC options. In your Word document, place the cursor where you want the TOC, press Ctrl + F9 to insert field brackets, and type this inside: TOC \o "1-1" \h \z \u. Then press F9 to update the field. This creates a TOC using only Heading 1 styles, removes page numbers, and ensures compatibility with Kindle requirements. KDP prefers this method because it follows their guidelines for navigation without relying on Word’s auto-formatting features.
