How to: Add a Table of Contents to a Workbook

The following code example was provided by MVP Bill Jelen. Bill is the author of 24 books on Microsoft Office Excel. He is a regular guest on TechTV with Leo Laporte and the host of MrExcel.com, which includes more than 300,000 questions and answers about Excel.

The following code example verifies that a sheet named "TOC" already exists. If it exists, the example updates the table of contents. Otherwise, the example creates a new TOC sheet at the beginning of the workbook. The name of each worksheet, along with the corresponding printed page numbers, is listed in the table of contents. To retrieve the page numbers the example opens the Print Preview dialog box. You must close the dialog box and then the table of contents is created.

Sub CreateTableOfContents() ' Determine if there is already a Table of Contents ' Assume it is there, and if it is not, it will raise an error ' if the Err system variable is > 0, you know the sheet is not there Dim WST As Worksheet On Error Resume Next Set WST = Worksheets("Table of Contents") If Not Err = 0 Then ' The Table of contents doesn't exist. Add it Set WST = Worksheets.Add(Before:=Worksheets(1)) WST.Name = "TOC" End If On Error GoTo 0 ' Set up the table of contents page WST.[A2] = "Table of Contents" With WST.[A6] .CurrentRegion.Clear .Value = "Subject" End With WST.[B6] = "Page(s)" WST.Range("A1:B1").ColumnWidth = Array(36, 12) TOCRow = 7 PageCount = 0 ' Do a print preview on all sheets so Excel calcs page breaks ' The user must manually close the PrintPreview window Msg = "Excel needs to do a print preview to calculate the number of pages. " Msg = Msg & "Please dismiss the print preview by clicking close." MsgBox Msg ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintPreview ' Loop through each sheet, collecting TOC information For Each S In Worksheets If S.Visible = -1 Then S.Select ThisName = ActiveSheet.Name HPages = ActiveSheet.HPageBreaks.Count + 1 VPages = ActiveSheet.VPageBreaks.Count + 1 ThisPages = HPages * VPages ' Enter info about this sheet on TOC Sheets("TOC").Select Range("A" & TOCRow).Value = ThisName Range("B" & TOCRow).NumberFormat = "@" If ThisPages = 1 Then Range("B" & TOCRow).Value = PageCount + 1 & " " Else Range("B" & TOCRow).Value = PageCount + 1 & " - " & PageCount + ThisPages End If PageCount = PageCount + ThisPages TOCRow = TOCRow + 1 End If Next S End Sub