Inserting the Document Title in Your Document

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 13, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365


Word keeps track of many pieces of information about your document. You can see the information maintained by Word in this manner:

  • If you are using Word 2007, click the Office button and then click Word Options. In the resulting Word Options dialog box, you click Prepare and then Properties.
  • If you are using Word 2010 or a later version of the program, display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Info | Properties | Advanced Properties.

If you search around through the information that Word maintains about a document, you'll find that Word provides the opportunity to specify a title for your document. Once you set the title, Word allows you to insert this information into your document and have it updated automatically. This means you can set the title once in the document properties and then have it inserted in the header, footer, or heading for your document. That way, you only have to update it in one place and it will automatically be updated everywhere in the document.

To insert the document title into your document (after you have added it to the document's properties, as described above), follow these steps:

  1. Position the insertion point where you want the title to appear.
  2. Display the Insert tab of the ribbon.
  3. Click the Quick Parts tool in the Text group and then choose Field. Word displays the Field dialog box.
  4. In the Categories list, choose Document Information. Word updates the choices in the Field Names list (right side of the dialog box). (See Figure 1.)
  5. Figure 1. The Field dialog box.

  6. In the Field Names list choose Title.
  7. Click on OK to close the dialog box and insert your field.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6028) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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