Version: Should work at least with any version from Office 97 and forward.
In this article I’m going to show you how to get dynamically updated section or chapter headers in Word. This will allow you to create a nice looking document that is easy to navigate for the reader. We will work the example through step-by-step.
1. Go to the starting section (the content) of your document. Select File à Page setup and the Layout tab. Check the box Different odd and even and select Apply to à This point forward. Click OK (see picture 1).
Picture 1.
2. Select View à Header and footer, and then Insert à Field. In the dialog box that appears you scroll down to StyleRef in the Field names list. A new list called Style name will appear under Field properties (see picture 2). This list contains a list of style formats, and here you select Heading 1 (provided that your section titles are formatted as such).
Picture 2.
3. Check the box next to Search from the bottom of page to top if you want the displayed item to be the last one present on the page. There are some other options such as paragraph number and so on that you can chose if you want. Click OK. The chapter/section title should now appear in your header like in picture 3. It will also change automatically in all instances if you change your title (you might need to update it by pressing F9).
Picture 3.
4. This step is optional. If you want altering text on odd and even pages you just go to the next page in the document, view the Header and footer, de-select Link to previous (see picture 4). Insert some other item of your choice, like document title or author name, following the procedure in step 2.
Picture 4.
Keywords: dynamic text, MS Word, header, text field, automatic chapter
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Thanks very much. You really made my day.
I’ve done this before and couldn’t remember the right way, thanks for giving me the crucial hint =)
I was having trouble with all this seccions for headers and then all the seccions for diferent page counting…
Office live website doesnt help here a lot.
Thanks
This is an awesome post. Thanks for sharing.
Kudos mate.
Saved me quite a bit of effort
Many many thanks!
groovy advice man, thanks a lot.
Thanks for the help – this was easily found and just what I needed.
Thank you!!!!! I was having a horrid time of finding the “Insert Field” command in Word 2007, and you helped me lots!!! This info ROCKS!
BTW, if someone hasn’t already mentioned it, you can check off “different odd and even” under Custom Margins, and that will allow you to have unique headers on alternating pages, even if you do leave your margins identical on the inside and outside edges of the page. But, as you may have already guessed, you can also have different outside and inside margin sizes as well. Very nice for two-sided printing. Looks quite nice.
Excellent tip, much better than the technique described on Microsoft’s own website. Thanks.
Hi
You have made my day!!! That was fantastic. Never knew Word is so powerful!!
Thanks a lot!!
Thank you for sharing!
Ah, wonderful! You’re a miracle worker!
You’ve no idea how much you’ve helped me out – thanks once again!
–Alex
Hi and thanks, its always nice to hear you helped someone!
To get the header displayed at the top of the page, just uncheck the the box next to “Search from the bottom of page to top” (see picture 2 in the article) and you should get the top most header rather than the last header on the page.
Hope this helps!
Fantastic! This has really helped me out! Thank you!
I don’t suppose there’s any way to tell Word to use the last ‘full’ Heading 1?
Because I have lots of sections, and I’d rather it said which heading the text on the top half of the page was rather than it displaying the heading that starts half way down the page.
Thanks again!