Bookmarks

A Bookmark gives a name to a part of a document so that other parts can point at it. A Hyperlink jumps to a bookmark and a PageReference shows the page it is on, which together with a dotted TabStop is all a table of contents needs:

import WriteDocx as W

function entry(title, anchor)
    W.Paragraph(
        [
            W.Hyperlink([W.Run([W.Text(title)])], anchor = anchor),
            W.Run([W.Tab()]),
            W.PageReference(anchor),
        ],
        W.ParagraphProperties(tabs = [
            W.TabStop(15 * W.cm, alignment = W.TabAlignment.stop, leader = W.TabLeader.dot),
        ]),
    )
end

function chapter(title, anchor)
    W.Bookmark(anchor, [
        W.Paragraph([W.Run([W.Text(title)])], style = "Heading1"),
        W.Paragraph([W.Run([W.Text("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. "^20)])]),
        W.Paragraph([W.Run([W.Break(W.BreakType.page)])]),
    ])
end

doc = W.Document(W.Body([W.Section([
    entry("Introduction", "introduction"),
    entry("Methods", "methods"),
    W.Paragraph([W.Run([W.Break(W.BreakType.page)])]),
    chapter("Introduction", "introduction"),
    chapter("Methods", "methods"),
])]))

W.save("bookmarks.docx", doc)

Download bookmarks.docx:

Note

A PageReference is a field whose result Word computes, so the page numbers appear once it recalculates the document's fields, which it does when printing or exporting. Until then they may show as empty. Pressing Ctrl+A and then F9 updates them by hand.

Bookmark names identify their bookmark, so they have to be unique within a document, and links pointing at a name that no bookmark defines are an error when the document is saved. Word truncates names longer than 40 characters and replaces whitespace in them with underscores, which would silently break the links pointing at them, so both are rejected instead.