Right-click in the table of contents, and then choose Edit Index or Table of Contents.

Right-click in the table of contents, and then choose Edit Index or Table of Contents. What does this mean? You can’t “right click in the table of contents”

I see that I added my own table instead of having libre office generate one. It was hard to figure out to format from the box when I right clicked on the table of contents. Now it seems to be working, but it sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. I still wonder if it’s possible to click on a chapter heading or subchapter heading to return to the table of contents. I formatted my chapter titles in my document as heading 1 and subtitles as heading 2.

So far, it’s counter-intuitive because you refuse to read the basics in the user’s manual and accept to change your mind about what is “right” or “wrong”. So far, when you use another tool, you must also change your mind to adapt to the tool.

So far, is your question about how to create a TOC with hyperlinks or about right-click in a TOC?

So far, a TOC is correctly generated if your (sub)chapter headings are styles Heading n. I you didn’t do it so far, you’ll have a hard time configuring it. Read the whole stuff about styles. They are far more developed in LO Writer than in the competition.

Matter of fact, having links to jump from TOC to (sub)chapter is done by default in the out-of-the-shelf TOC configuration. Return links from chapter headings to TOC are not feasible unless you heavily manually rework the TOC and your work will disappear next time you update the TOC!

For hyperlinks in TOC and back, see this question and my answer

You can click anywhere in the TOC. What you can’t do is type text in in it because it is a protected area (auto generated by Writer).

Edit Index will reopen the creation dialog so that you can change the layout of the TOC.

Update Index will refresh the TOC to reflect the current state of headings.

If you can’t trigger the commands, something is wrong in your procedure. Edit your question (this is no forum site, but Q&A and AskBot software reorders “answers” be relevance – it has its own notion of relevance – which causes a loss of chronological order) to better describe what you do. Don"t forget OS and LO version. Read these guidelines.

Hmm, I have a problem with this “What you can’t do is type text in in it because it is a protected area (auto generated by Writer).”

My page numbers on my page footers start AFTER the title page and TOC, but the page numbers generated in the TOC are the “absolute” page numbers. I suppose I’ll have to print to pdf and then edit in Adobe.

This is no answer but looks like a comment, or maybe a fresh question related to this one of yours.

Please delete this pseudo-answer or transfer it into a comment below my answer if you think it worth being kept.