Table of contents in LaTeX
LaTeX generates a table of contents automatically with \tableofcontents — no manual formatting needed.
Quick answer
latex
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\newpage
\section{Introduction}
\subsection{Background}
\end{document}How it works
On the first compile, LaTeX writes section data to a .toc file. The second compile reads it to render the TOC. Always compile twice (or use latexmk which handles this automatically).
Controlling depth
By default, the TOC includes up to subsubsection level. Reduce depth to keep it concise.
latex
% Show only sections and subsections:
\setcounter{tocdepth}{2}
% Show sections only:
\setcounter{tocdepth}{1}
% Depth values:
% 1 = \section
% 2 = \subsection
% 3 = \subsubsectionList of figures / tables
latex
\tableofcontents
\listoffigures
\listoftablesClickable TOC with hyperref
Load hyperref to make every TOC entry a clickable link in the PDF.
latex
\usepackage{hyperref}
% No other changes needed — \tableofcontents is automatically linked.Custom TOC title
latex
% Rename "Contents" to something else:
\renewcommand{\contentsname}{Table of Contents}
% For book/report class (chapters use \chaptername):
\renewcommand{\contentsname}{Contents}Adding an entry manually
latex
% Add an unnumbered section to the TOC:
\section*{Acknowledgements}
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Acknowledgements}