Placing the First Two Words from the Following Page In the Footer

Dawn would like the footer on each page in her document to contain the first two words that appear on the following page in the document. If the pagination changes, then of course the footer should update to reflect whatever two words are then at the top of the following page.

This is a tough problem for several reasons. Word allows you to rather easily create "dictionary style" headers or footers, using the STYLEREF field. However, that field always refers to the first or last usage of a style on the page where the STYLEREF field appears. In Dawn's case, she wants words from the next page, not the current page.

The biggest problem, though, is the desire for the footer to update, dynamically, as editing occurs in the document. We've not been able to find a way to do this with the tools that Word provides. You can, if desired, create a macro that sets the footers, but there is a catch—because each page will have a different footer, you'll need to add a section break to the end of each page. This, of course, means that if you later add or delete text, you'll need to delete section breaks so they again match up with the end of each page.

Sound complicated? It can be, particularly if you have a document with many pages because such a document will require many section breaks. Even so, a macro like the following will help accomplish what you want:

Sub FillFooter()
    Dim iPage As Integer
    Dim iSec As Integer
    Dim sFText As String
    Dim sTemp As String

    sFText = "See next page for this: "

    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory     ' Go to beginning of document

    ' Use Find and Replace to get rid of all section breaks
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^b"
        .Replacement.Text = ""
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchByte = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchFuzzy = False
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

    iSec = 1            ' Only 1 section now in document
    For iPage = 1 To Selection.Information(wdNumberOfPagesInDocument) - 1
        ' Figure out first two words on "next page"
        Selection.GoTo what:=wdGoToPage, which:=wdGoToNext, Name:=iPage + 1
        Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=2, Extend:=wdExtend
        sTemp = Trim(Selection)
        While Asc(Right(sTemp, 1)) < 65
            ' Word counts punctuation, tabs, etc. as a word, so grab another word
            Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
            sTemp = Trim(Selection)
        Wend

        Selection.Collapse      ' Now at beginning of page again
        Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdParagraph
        Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdSectionBreakContinuous

        ' Set text for page footer
        With ActiveDocument.Sections(iSec).Footers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary)
            .LinkToPrevious = False
            .Range.Text = sFText & sTemp
        End With
        iSec = iSec + 1
    Next iPage
End Sub

The macro first removes all section breaks from the document, then it goes through each page of the document and figures out the first two words of each. It then steps back a paragraph and adds a continuous section break and finally sets the footer for that section to be equal to the desired text. You should note that the footer is set equal to whatever is in the sFText variable followed by the first two words of the next page.

Understand that a macro such as this provides a "static" approach to the desired footer. This means that if you end up making changes to your document, you'll want to once again run the macro to update the footers.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (2835) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021.