Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Inserting a Cross-Reference to the First Style on a Page.
Word includes a cross-reference feature that allows you to indicate the contents of a paragraph formatted with a specific style. This is done with fields and is used primarily in headers or footers. For instance, let's suppose your document uses headers or footers that refer to headings appearing on the page. This is frequently done in reference material and is a great help to the reader. You can use the following steps to set up this type of cross-reference.
If you set up your header or footer this way, then every time the contents of the referenced paragraph style changes, the contents of the header or footer will change. For instance, let's say that you are using the Heading 2 style in the field. Every time a new paragraph formatted with the Heading 2 style is encountered in your document, the contents of that paragraph are inserted in place of the field in the header or footer.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (3517) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Inserting a Cross-Reference to the First Style on a Page.
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2021-03-11 02:59:55
Ioannis
Hi Allen.
Thank you for this tip. My need is close to this I suppose. How can I have the first and last word of each page on the header? The text is a dictionary and the words that need to appear on the header are the first or last in bold.
To complicate things, that bold word, the first of the paragraph, may not be on the top of the page but somewhere on the previous page. So, on the next page it should appear the first bold that happens to be.
Thank you,
Ioannis
2020-06-10 04:14:25
Anne Denniston
How do you get Styleref to refer to headings in tables? I want to have a footer that refers to the previous Heading 3 in a long table.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
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