In older versions of Word, you had to fight with it a little bit. You also had to decide which of five methods (if I’m counting right) you wanted to use to create one. In Word 2010, you can do it in two clicks.
First, understand that Word creates TOC entries from built-in headings (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.). It was that way in previous versions too, but now it’s more automatic. Headings you have tagged as Heading 1 style will become major entries in the table, headings you have tagged as the Heading 2 style will become second-level entries and so forth.
Then go to the References tab on the Ribbon bar, click the Table of Contents drop-down button and choose a TOC style that you want.
And that’s it! The table will be inserted where your text cursor is. So you might want to insert a page break (Ctrl + Enter) at the top of your document before inserting the table.