table of contents not updating

[sophied452]

I have a 90 page document in word 365 on a sharepoint. All of a sudden my table of contents are not being updated. I can't see anything out of the ordinary that would cause this to happen. I tried copying the text (and images) into a word document. When I do that I lose all my headers formatting.  

I then tried removing the table of contents and adding it back in. It won't let me delete it... what am I missing? help...please....

[#2]

@sophied452 

Are you editing the document online or are you opening it in a locally installed, full version of Word?

[#3]

@Stefan_Blom  I tried with both. The online version, downloaded the file then opened it in word. When that failed I copied and pasted it in word. 

[#4]

@sophied452 

Recent versions of Word on the Web can be used to insert and update a (simple) table of contents, so the functionality is supported. 

If you are saying that copy & paste into a new document worked around the issue, the problem could have been with the document itself (it may have suffered from minor corruption).

[#5]

to be honest as silly as it may sound I never thought of a corrupt file. that would make sense. Sadly only one thing to do. copy it in note pad or something and re format the document.

[#6 · Accepted solution]

@sophied452 

Converting to plain text format will of course remove all corruption. However, it is a drastic step which may require a lot of reformatting afterwards. 

If you ever see something similar in the future, try copying all the content, minus the final paragraph mark (¶) of the document, into a new, blank document and see if it overcomes the issue. 

To show/hide nonprinting marks (including paragraph marks), click the ¶ on the Home tab.

[#7]

No Clue why that worked but it worked right away! Table of contents is now updating properly. @Stefan_Blom you totally made my week.

[#8]

@sophied452 

I'm glad you got it sorted. 🙂