Manual Line Breaks in STYLEREF Results

Samantha uses the STYLEREF field in the heading of my document. If the paragraph style (a heading) on the page contains a manual line break (Shift+Enter), that break also appears in the STYLEREF result in the document header. Samantha wonders if there is a way to get the STYLEREF result to not include the line break and still use the line break in the document itself.

The purpose of the STYLEREF field is to return whatever text is formatted with a particular style. For instance, if you have text on a page that is formatting using the Heading 1 style, then you can use the STYLEREF field in the page header or footer to display that text. If the text contains special characters, such as tabs or manual line breaks, then those are included in what the STYLEREF field returns—just as Samantha is seeing.

There is no way to get STYLEREF to ignore certain characters, such as the manual line break. The only thing you can do is to find a way to not include a manual line break in your text. The absolute easiest way to handle this situation is to change how you use the styles. For instance, let's say that you are using the Heading 2 style and this is what you are wanting referenced in the STYLEREF field. Instead, create two styles, such as Heading 2a and Heading 2b. Use Heading 2a for the first line of your heading and Heading 2b for the second line. In this way, your heading will not need to include a manual line break. Then, in your page header, you could use two STYLEREF fields:

{ STYLEREF "Heading 2a" } { STYLEREF "Heading 2b" }

This places the two lines of the heading right next to each other in the page header, just as you want.

If you don't want to use two styles in this manner, you can try setting tab stops and using these to remove the need to use a manual line break. For instance, in your heading style, define a tab stop at something like 0.01 inches and another just before the right margin. (As an example, for a 6.5 inch text width, you could set a tab stop at 6.49 inches.)

Now, type the first part of your heading's text, and where you would normally press Shift+Enter, instead press Tab. Since any text that you type after the tab character won't fit on the line, Word will automatically move it to the next line. So, you end up with two lines of text without the need of using Shift+Enter. You can then adjust your header style so that the tab stops don't affect the appearance of text on that line.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9036) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.