Inserting a Document's File Location

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 22, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365

It is often handy to insert the location of a document into your document itself. For instance, you may want the footer of your document to include an indication of a document's file name, along with the full path for the file. You can do this easily by following these steps:

Position the insertion point where you want the file name inserted.
Choose the Insert tab of the ribbon.
Click the Quick Parts tool in the Text group.
Choose Field. Word displays the Field dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Field dialog box.

Choose Document Information from the Categories list.
Select FileName from the Field Names list.
Make sure the Add Path to Filename check box is selected in the third column of the Field dialog box. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The Add Path to Filename check box selected.

Click on the Field Codes button. Word modifies the display of the dialog box.
Click Options. Word displays the Field Options dialog box.
Click on the Field Specific Switches tab. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3. The Field Specific Switches tab of the Field Options dialog box.

Choose the \p option. (This causes the path of the file name to be included in the field results.)
Click on Add to Field.
Click on OK to close the Field Options dialog box.
Click on OK to close the Field dialog box and insert the 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 (7552) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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. Learn more about Allen...

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What is 2 + 2?

2022-03-08 08:52:31

Allen

Shelley, see the link at the right side of the page to the WordTips channel on YouTube.

-Allen

2022-03-07 23:59:50

Shelley

Thank you so much. This was very helpful. I plan to teach my Mum how to use word.doc. Do you have any videos?

2022-03-07 10:18:11

Andrew

Tomek, the general purpose answer lies in a updating fields by via a macro such as done in this post: http://wordribbon.tips.net/T012247_Field_in_Footer_Wont_Update.html. Also see https://www.thedoctools.com/word-macros-tips/word-macros/update-all-fields-in-word.

Andy.

2022-03-04 17:18:22

Tomek

BTW: the trick i posted a few minutes ago works better than updating fields by pressing F9, as the latter will only update selected fields and you need to repeat it for all footers and headers separately.
It also updates fields inside text boxes and tables all at once.

2022-03-04 17:07:19

Tomek

Andrew:
Pretending to print by going to print preview no longer updates the fields, at least in my Word from MS365 Family, but I remember it also stopped working in my Word 365 in the office (I am now retired). It still works if you actually print it, even if it is to a nul printer, which I set up specifically for this purpose (named "NulPrint"). I also created a macro to print to the null printer then restore the printer originally selected. I added it to my QAT.

'--------------------------------
Sub NulPrint()

CurPrinter = ActivePrinter
ActivePrinter = "NulPrint"
Application.PrintOut
ActivePrinter = CurPrinter

End Sub

2022-02-28 09:55:30

Andrew

The answer to all three comments below is that the file field will "sort of" automatically update. The field needs to be updated either by pressing F9, printing the document, or "pretending to print" the document (e.g., going into print preview).

Andy.

2022-02-25 10:28:47

David

How do you set the file location to an anonymous/private number string instead of https://sharepoint.com/site/files/subfiles/issues/document1.doc etc?

2021-10-21 13:38:02

Scott

This is a great tip. I was hoping to have a way to insert a DYNAMIC file path that would update if a document was copied or moved to another folder. Do you know if that's possible?

For example, if I had a file on my hard drive with path c:\documents\example.docx and I moved/copied it to a shared network drive a:\shared-docs\example.docx, the file path in the document would update.

2020-02-26 09:08:55

Dee

If the document is moved ... does the file path update?

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