Table of Contents bolds Level 3 - Word 2010

Suzanne:

Thanks for that information.  Very helpful.  But what if I want the heading in the actual text set as bold?  Just not in the TOC?  That's how we have our Level 2's in the TOC done.  They are also bold in the document itself, but not in the TOC. 

If your Heading 3 style is bold, the numbering will automatically be bold, too, so you don't have to specify the formatting in the Define New Multilevel List dialog. I don't think you have (as Stefan suggests) applied bold formatting as direct formatting; if you had, the entire TOC entry would be bold--not just the numbering.       

As Stefan suggests, however, you can start by clearing any direct font formatting from the headings; even if the heading itself doesn't have any direct formatting, the numbers will be bold if the paragraph mark is formatted as bold.

Suzanne and Stefan:

Thank you both very much for hanging in there with me and helping me.  I have followed your instructions (at least I believe I have) and it hasn't changed anything.    My header level 3 is formatted as bold,  and the text of it is bold in the document and not in the TOC.  The numbering is provided by my multi-level list numbering (which is linked to header Level 3) and I turned the bold off the font of that and it changed the numbers back to regular (removed the bold) in the text of the document.  Which they are supposed to be bold in the document itself.  In addition, the other levels of headings and multi-level lists are set the exact same way and it works correctly for levels 1 and 2.  It is only in levels 3 and 4 in the TOC that suddenly the numbers become bold in the TOC.  The way it's supposed to look is that the Item level is all Header 1 with the multi-level list providing the numbering and linked to Heading 1.  in the TOC this whole line should be bold.  After that, in the TOC there should be no bold.   And as mentioned above - right now I've got everything with the same settings which causes my confusion.   :)   any chance anyone can help?

When you turned off the bold format for the numbers in Heading 3, did you confirm that the Heading 3 style is formatted as bold? If so, when you press Ctrl+Q in a Heading 3 paragraph, does this make the numbers bold? This should work as described.

If you want the TOC entries to be bold, you have to modify the TOC styles--TOC 1 for Level 1, TOC 2 for Level 2, and so on. It looks like your Level 1 is already bold, as desired, and the rest are not, also as specified.