How to Use the TOC Auto-Numbering Tool
When you write a table of contents for a report, manual, or paper with multiple heading levels, numbering each entry by hand becomes tedious the moment you add or reorder a section — you end up renumbering everything from scratch. This tool reads indentation as your heading hierarchy and instantly generates numbers in 1 / 1.1 / 1.1.1 format.
Just paste your outline into the text box, one heading per line, and indent sub-headings with 2 spaces or 1 tab per level. Top-level headings need no indentation, second-level headings get 2 spaces, third-level headings get 4 spaces, and so on up to 6 levels deep. The numbered result updates instantly as you type, so reordering or inserting sections never requires manual renumbering.
It's especially handy when a word processor's built-in numbering breaks after a formatting change — generate clean numbers here first, then paste the result into your document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Stick to one method per line for best results. Any line containing a tab is leveled by its tab count; lines with only spaces are leveled by counting every 2 spaces as one level.
It recognizes up to 6 levels (1.1.1.1.1.1). Anything indented deeper is capped at level 6. Most real-world documents rarely go beyond 3-4 levels, so this covers virtually all cases.