How to make a table of authorities in Word for Mac

Updated 21 September 2026 · Word for Mac 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024 and Microsoft 365

A table of authorities (TOA) lists every case, statute, rule and other source a brief cites, with the pages where each one appears. Word can build one automatically, on a Mac as well as on Windows, but only after every citation in the brief has been marked with a hidden TA field. The marking is the slow part. This guide covers the manual method in Word for Mac, the problems Mac users usually hit, and a faster way to do the marking.

How Word builds the table

Word's table of authorities is built from two kinds of field code:

• TA fields sit next to each citation in the text. They are hidden, and they record the citation's full form, its short form, and its category (cases, statutes, rules and so on).
• One TOA field sits where the table goes. When it updates, Word collects every TA field in the document, sorts them by category, and prints the page numbers.

So Word does the sorting and the page numbers for you. What it can't do on its own is find the citations. That's the marking step, and on a Mac it's where most of the trouble is.

Method 1: Mark each citation by hand

1. Select the first full citation in your brief, for example Monasky v. Taglieri, 589 U.S. 68 (2020).
2. Go to References → Mark Citation.
3. In the dialog, edit the Long citation so it reads the way you want it to appear in the table. Enter a Short citation (for example, Monasky) and choose a Category.
4. Click Mark to mark this instance, or Mark All to mark every exact match of the long and short citation text.
5. Repeat for every authority in the brief.

Then build the table:

1. Put the cursor where the table should go, usually under a "Table of Authorities" heading.
2. Go to References → Insert Table of Authorities, choose the categories and formatting (leaders, "passim," original formatting), and click OK.

Method 2: Type the field codes yourself

If the Mark Citation dialog won't cooperate, you can insert the same fields by hand. Press Cmd+F9 to insert field braces (on some keyboards fn+Cmd+F9). Then type inside them:

{ TA \l "Monasky v. Taglieri, 589 U.S. 68 (2020)" \s "Monasky" \c 1 }

Use \l for the long citation (first occurrence only), \s for the short citation, and \c for the category. Word's default categories are 1 Cases, 2 Statutes, 3 Other Authorities, 4 Rules, 5 Treatises, 6 Regulations and 7 Constitutional Provisions. Later mentions of the same authority need only { TA \s "Monasky" }.

The table itself is one field, for example { TOA \h \c "1" \p } for the cases, with \h adding the category heading and \p replacing five or more page numbers with "passim."

Updating the table after edits

Page numbers change as you edit, so update the table before you file. Select all (Cmd+A), right-click inside the table, and choose Update Field. The keyboard shortcut is F9, but on most Mac keyboards the F-keys control brightness and volume, so press fn+F9 instead.

To see the hidden TA fields, turn on Show all nonprinting characters (the ¶ button on the Home tab). Option+F9 (or fn+Option+F9) switches between field codes and their results.

Common problems on a Mac

• Mark Citation is greyed out or does nothing. Mac users have reported this on Microsoft's own support forums for years. Typing the field codes (Method 2) works around it.
• Mark All misses short forms. Mark All matches text exactly, so it won't catch Id., supra, a pin cite written differently, or a case name split across italic and roman text. Those have to be marked one at a time.
• An authority shows up twice in the table. Two TA fields for the same authority have slightly different long citations, such as an extra space or different punctuation. Make the \l text match exactly.
• The table says "No table of authorities entries found." The TOA field's category doesn't match any marked TA field, or the fields were deleted when text was pasted as plain text.
• Page numbers are off by a page or two. Hidden text is being counted in the page layout. Turn off the ¶ display, then update the table again.

A faster way: mark the whole brief at once

BriefMark does the marking for you. Open your .docx in the BriefMark app. It reads the brief, finds the cases, statutes, rules, regulations and secondary sources, including Id., supra and short forms, and shows you every authority it found so you can edit an entry, change its category or leave it out. Then it writes Word's own TA fields and the TOA field into the same document. Open the file in Word, select all, right-click and choose Update Field, and Word builds the table.

It runs entirely in your browser, so your brief is never uploaded. It works the same on a Mac and on Windows. Briefs with up to 8 authorities are free, and a license is $99 once.

Whichever method you use, review the table before you file. Neither Word nor BriefMark checks whether a citation is correct or still good law.

Related guides

Id., supra and short cites in a table of authorities · Table of authorities format

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