Complex Documents in Microsoft Word

Last edited by Charles Kenyon on Wednesday 10 April 2024

What You Will Learn

Boilerplate Macro Package

See Also:

[ Home ] [ Introduction ] [ Web Resources ] [ Word Books ] [ Confidentiality ] [ Word FAQ ] [ Downloads ] [ Word 2002 ]

(this guide table of contents) ----- (MS Word New Users FAQ)

Search Usersguide to Microsoft Word using Google

Complex Document Overview

Complex documents in a legal environment are plentiful, and generally these documents are to be filed or sent to clients on a time sensitive basis. That's why knowing the ins and outs of the tools that Word has to offer in the quick creation of Tables of Contents, Tables of Authorities, Indices, cross-references (and more) is essential in the timely completion of these documents.

CK Note: A key to drafting and editing complex documents in Word is using Styles in your formatting, especially the built-in heading styles. In Word 2007 and later the features discussed in this chapter start with the References Tab on the Ribbon.

Quick Navigation Using Document Map or Navigation Pane

When you use styles in your complex document Microsoft Word's Document Map feature lets you quickly move to different headings within a document. This is a real time-saver when working with long documents.

The Document Map is just like a road map. If you have used heading styles within your complex document you can maneuver your way through the document by clicking on the corresponding heading that you need to access for editing. By clicking the heading, you are transported to that destination in your document. So, if you had a document that was 42 pages long, and you needed to get to heading 6.2 on page 31, just click on the heading in the Document Map area and you quickly move to this location.

CK Warning - The Document Map has known bugs that can corrupt your document if you use it to reorganize. This was fixed with the Navigation Pane in Word 2010. The Outline View does not have the drawbacks of the Document Map and can be used in all versions of Word, at least since Word 97.

Practice: Navigate Using Document Navigation Pane (Word 2010 and later)

1. Create or open a long document formatted with heading styles.
2. View Tab and check the box for Navigation Pane.
   
3. Click on a heading within the Navigation Pane to move to that section in the document.
4. Click on a different heading in the document map to move to another section within the document.

To turn off the Document Pane, click X at the top right corner of the pane.

See also Outline View in Microsoft Word

Practice: Navigate Using Navigation Pane (Word 97 - Word 2007)

1. Create or open a long document formatted with heading styles.
2. Click the Document Map button on the Standard toolbar, or from the View menu, choose Document Map.
3. Click on a heading within the document map to move to that section in the document.
4. Click on a different heading in the document map to move to another section within the document.

To turn off the document map feature, click the Document Map button on the Standard toolbar. The button works as a toggle.

CK Warning: Using the Document Map to move text in a document can lead to document corruption!

Generating a Table of Contents

When you use Word's built-in styles or your own custom styles within your long document, generating a table of contents can be as easy as 1-2-3. Word will do all the work for you by inserting your applied headings (at their different levels) into a quickly generated table of contents. You can also customize your indents, tab leaders, page numbers, and even other formatting for your table of contents easily in the creation process of your TOC.

You are not restricted to using just the heading styles method of creating a table of contents, you can mark your headings manually, or you can define what styles the table of contents includes by selecting any styles from within the document.

See also: Two ways to create a Table of Contents in Word by legal office guru Deborah Savadra (video)

Practice: Generate a Table of Contents Using Applied Styles

1. Create a new document and type the following text:
   Introduction
   Overview
   Unsolicited Proposals
   Solicited Proposals
   General
   The Proposal

2. Click anywhere within the first line, Introduction.
3. (Word 97-2003) Click the Style drop-down arrow and apply Heading 1. (Or, press Ctrl+Alt+1)

      
     (Word 2007-2019) Click the Heading 1 style in the QuickStyles Gallery. (Or, press Ctrl+Alt+1)
      

As you see from the two previous figures, the only difference between Word 97 and Word 2000-2019's Table of Contents tabs is that Word 2000-2019 allows you to preview your table of contents, as it will look on the web, not with page numbers, but with your headings as hyperlinks.

Practice: Generate a Table of Contents By Manually Marking Entries

1. Create a new document and again type the following text:
   Introduction
   Overview
   Unsolicited Proposals
   Solicited Proposals
   General
   The Proposal

2. Select the first line Introduction.
3. Press Alt+Shift+O on the keyboard. This combination opens the Mark Table of Contents Entry dialog box. (Notice that your selected text is in the Entry field.)

4. The Table Identifier default is C if you do not have any other tables (Table of Figures, Table of Authorities, etc.) within your document. This is for multiple tables and allows for hierarchy among the tables.

The next field is the Level identifier for your selected text. You change this field to correspond to whatever heading levels you have selected.

5. Click Mark, and your TOC entry has been marked for insertion to your table of contents. The Mark Table of Contents Entry dialog box will stay open so that you can click twice back into your document and select the next heading without closing the dialog box.
6. Select the next heading, and then click twice back into the dialog box, and the newly selected heading will automatically be placed in the Entry field.
7. Mark all of the headings in your document with the appropriate levels.
8. Place the insertion point where you want the table of contents to be generated. From the Insert menu, choose Index and Tables. Select the Table of Contents tab.
9. Click Options.

10. Under the option for Build table of contents from, uncheck the Styles checkbox and check the option for Table entry fields. Click OK, and then OK again to close the dialog box and to generate your manually marked table of contents.

Using the Add Text Option in the Table of Contents group of the References Tab - Word 2007 and later

The Add Text command gives you a short menu.
The default is to not show text in the TOC and you will notice it is checked.

If your paragraph already has an Outline Level of 1-3 the level will be shown and you can escape this menu.

What this menu does is the equivalent of pulling up the Format Paragraph dialog and assigning an Outline level to the paragraph. Unlike the TC command, it does not use the selected text but marks the entire paragraph.

Paragraphs so marked will appear not only in the TOC but also in the Navigation Pane.

 

Generating a Table of Contents Using Word 2007 and Later - The Gallery

The instructions above work. The method of manually marking text to go into the Table of Contents is the same in all versions. This section is about the Gallery entries that come with the Ribbon Versions of Word. There are three of them. If you do not have a Ribbon Version of Word, skip to Updating a Table of Contents.

Word 2007 and later move the Table of Contents controls to the References tab on the far left  end of the tab. If you click on the Table of Contents button you get a drop down menu. By default that menu looks like this:

The first two entries "Automatic Table 1" and "Automatic Table 2" insert a TOC field inside of a Content Control under a Title. The only difference between the two is the Title: "Contents" or "Table of Contents." In the document, when selected, the Content Control looks like this:

The "Update Table" tab and the outline disappear when your selection is outside of the TOC. This is a Content Control. It is noticeably slower at updating or editing than is the simple field. Again, the only difference with "Automatic Table 2" is that it will read "Table of Contents" instead of "Contents." If you use the "Insert Table of Contents" (Word 2007/2010) or "Custom Table of Contents" (Word 2013 and later) commands instead of picking an entry, you will get just the field rather than the Content Control with title. I have provided a template on my downloads page that lets you add this to the gallery if you would prefer that to using the command.

The third entry "Manual Table" inserts Content Controls formatted using the TOC1-TOC3 styles instead of a field. You then type your own content and page numbers. It is not at all automatic other than the styles for formatting. Although the TOC Content Control says "Update Table" because it contains no fields, clicking on that will generate an error message. (It won't hurt anything, though.)

Each entry in this is a Content Control that will disappear once you type in it. The page numbers are entered manually, not generated from the pages that something is actually on.

The "Insert a Table of Contents..." choice takes you to the classic Insert Table of Contents Dialog that lets you pick options. In Word 2013 and later, this choice is "Custom Table of Contents..."

In my Word installation, I've gone so far as to delete the automatic Table of Contents and Manual Table of Contents entries using the Building Blocks Organizer under Quick Parts.

Adding Your Own Table Of Contents to the Gallery

Again, there are two components to any Table of Contents, the field and the TOC styles. The field controls what goes into your TOC, the styles control how the TOC looks. This is covered in MVP Suzanne Barnhill's article TOC Tips and Tricks.

If you create a Custom Table of Contents, you can select it and add that field to the Gallery using the "Save Selection to Table of Contents Gallery..." command on the menu. If you changed the TOC styles, you will need to get those styles in a document to perfect the look.

Updating a Table of Contents

As with all complex documents, edits are constantly occurring. These edits will ultimately affect your initially generated table of contents. There are various ways to update the table of contents:

When you decide to update your table of contents and use one of the options listed previously, the Update Table of Contents dialog box appears.

You are asked whether you want to Update page numbers only, or if you would like to Update entire table. If you have manually changed any text in the table of contents and only want the page numbers to be updated, select that option. Otherwise (almost always), you want to update the entire table.

(this guide table of contents) ----- (MS Word New Users FAQ)

Search Usersguide to Microsoft Word using Google

Built-In Hyperlinks in the Table of Contents – Differences between Word 97 and Word 2000 and later – CK Note

By default, a Table of Contents generated in Word will contain hyperlinks to the sections listed in the Table of Contents. These hyperlinks are normally invisible (not formatted using the Hyperlink character style). Word 2000 makes the entire entry a hyperlink. In Word 97 only the page numbers are hyperlinks. If a document has a Table of Contents generated using Word 2000 and is read or edited in Word 97, the hyperlinks on the text in the Table of Contents will remain unless that Table of Contents is updated using Word 97. However, they will be formatted using the Hyperlink character style (blue and underlined by default) in Word 97.

If you right-click on the Table of Contents and “toggle” the field code, you will see how the field is constructed. One of the “switches” in the field is “\h.” If you delete this switch and update the field, the hyperlink property of the text will disappear in Word 2000. (The page numbers will continue to act as unformatted hyperlinks, though.).

Normally the Web and Word versions of this Users' Guide are very similar and interchangeable. However, in this chapter, I've added examples in the Word version that can't be accurately reflected here. Those examples are accompanied by text which also isn't shown here. The field code generated by default in Word 2000 is The field code for this is: { TOC \o "1-3" \h \z }. The Word version of this chapter demonstrates the Table of Contents and contains three different Tables of Contents with different field codes to show how these can be modified to change the heading levels and remove the hyperlink switch. See also Customizing Your Table of Contents with Switches by Suzanne Barnhill.

In Word 97-2000, the hyperlinks are shown in the Table of Contents with blue underlined text. In later versions of Word, the hyperlinks to content for the entire entry continue with the \h switch, but the hyperlink formatting of blue underlined text is suppressed. This leads to a further anomaly...

Built-In Hyperlinks and Direct Formatting and the Table of Contents Field - CK Note

With the default field code, the entries in a Table of Contents are hyperlinked to the content shown in the TOC. This is done with the \h switch in the TOC field. Without that switch, direct formatting applied to the entry (that is, not done through the paragraph style) will show up in the Table of Contents. However, with the \h switch you get no underlining from the original text and in Word versions up to 2007 no color. In Word 2010 and later, you may get some color reflected some times, but not necessarily the color from the original and not always. As far as I can tell you might get blue color in the TOC. Here is an example of a TOC and related text in Word 2010 with and without the \h switch.

 

 

Strangely enough, a macrobutton field in text which is also in a style set to be in a Table of Contents will be formatted in the Hyperlink style when shown in the Table of Contents and the field will be active in the TOC.

I assume that this would also apply to Tables of Authorities and Tables of Figures (but have not verified that). See also Suzanne Barnhill's article on direct formatting and a Table of Contents.

Changing the Appearance of the Table of Contents - Beyond the Switches - CK Note

The formatting of the Table of Contents itself is determined by the Styles TOC 1, TOC 2, TOC 3, etc. You need to modify those styles to make changes in the appearance of your Table of Contents that you can't get from the choices offered by Word. If you just modify the format directly, your changes will be lost when the table is updated. See Troubleshooting an example on this.

Using Only Part of a Document for a Table of Contents - CK Note

Sometimes it is useful to have a Table of Contents for only part of a document (i.e., a chapter). This can be done by selecting that part and inserting a Bookmark for that part. Then, you modify the TOC field to include a "switch" that makes it active only for the bookmarked text.

If, after inserting the Table of Contents, you press Alt+F9 to toggle display of field codes you should see something like this:

{ TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u }

The codes above are for a default Table of Contents. If you want to have it only for that portion of your document that is in the bookmark "Chapter_4," you would modify the field to read:

{ TOC \b Chapter_4 \o "1-3" \h \z \u }

Then press Alt+F9 and F9 to update your Table of Contents. It should now reflect only those entries within that bookmark.

Putting Only Part of a Heading in a Table of Contents Automatically Using the Style Separator - CK Note

The Table of Contents field uses items marked with the TC field or with certain Outline levels like the Heading Styles. If you have a lengthy heading and only want part of it in the Table of Contents, this can be done (beginning I believe with Word 2002) using a Style Separator. The following screenshot shows a paragraph with two paragraph styles applied, separated by a Style Separator.

When a Style Separator is used, normally the Styles on either side appear to be the same. The color of one was changed here for demonstration purposes.

See here for more on using the Style Separator and creating the continuation style, including a cautionary note about joining automatically numbered paragraphs using  the Style Separator.

Creating a Single Table of Contents for Multiple Documents Using RD Fields

It is possible to create a single Table of Contents for multiple documents. That Table of Contents should be a separate document containing RD fields. (Referenced Document)

The fields needed for that could be in the format:

{ RD "Chapter 1.docx" \f }
{ RD "Chapter 2.docx" \f }
{ TOC }

The above is for all of the documents in the same folder.

Note that the braces {} cannot simply be typed. You need to have Word insert a field.
Using Fields in Microsoft Word - a Tutorial in the Intermediate Users' Guide to Microsoft Word

Training Template from Microsoft

Early in 2019 Microsoft published a training template. "Insert your first Table of Contents"

The template does not show up in File > New searches in earlier versions but should be useful in all Ribbon versions of Word. You can download it from my downloads page.

Generating a Table of Authorities

Marking citations for a table of authorities is comparable to manually marking headings for a table of contents. Word looks for cases, statutes, rules, treatises, and constitutional provisions to generate a table of authorities. You can also mark any additional authority you need included. Here is the Microsoft support article on creating a TOA.

CK Note: In Word 2007 and later the Table of Authorities controls start on the References Tab

Practice: Mark a Table of Authorities Entry

1. Open a document that contains citations that you want to mark for a table of authorities and place your cursor at the beginning of the document.
2. From the Insert menu, choose Index and Tables, and select the Table of Authorities tab.
3. Click Mark Citation.
4. The following dialog box will appear. Click Next Citation. Word searches the document for terms such as: in re, v., Id., Supra, Infra, Cong., Sess., and §.

5. After Word has found a citation in the document, click twice back in your document and select the full citation (e.g. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964)). Click twice again, this time in the Mark Citation dialog box and the selection appears in the Selected Text field.
6. Choose a category for your citation (i.e. Cases, Statutes, etc.), and then edit the text in the Short Citation field to match the short citations in the rest of the document. This may be Escobedo v. Illinois, or just Escobedo. If you use just the first party, Word will find the party whenever it is referenced, for example, as "in Escobedo, the parties…". The long citation would have all variants on the citation required by your court.

7. Now you can mark the citation by clicking Mark for just the long cite, or Mark All to find all of the references throughout the document.
8. Repeat steps 3 through 6 to mark the rest of the citations in your document. When you are finished, click Close to close the dialog box.
9. Leave this document open for the next exercise.

The Categories shown in the list can be edited and you can have up to 16 catogories. You can edit the list by clicking on the Category button in the Mark Citation Dialog.

Shauna Kelly demonstrates using the Table of Authorities feature to create a list of technical terms in Word in her page on Creating a Glossary.

Practice: Generate A Table of Authorities

1. (Word 97-2003) Place the insertion point where you want the table of authorities to be generated. From the Insert menu, choose Index and Tables. Select the Table of Authorities tab.
   (Word 2007+) Click on the Table of Authorities button on the References Tab.

   Word 97 Table of Authorities Tab:

   

   Word 2000-2019 Table of Authorities Tab:

   

   The only difference between Word 97 and later versions in the Table of Authorities tabs is that the categories are no longer in a drop-down box.

2. Select a format for your table of authorities. Just as with the Table of Contents dialog box, as you change your selected format, the preview changes to reflect that format.
3. Uncheck the Use passim option. If checked and a citation is referenced on more than 5 pages, Word will put the word "passim" in place of the page numbers. If unchecked, Word allows all referenced pages to be listed, no matter how many there are.
4. Clear the Keep original formatting check box as well. This will insert the citations in the formatting of the table of authorities style. If the box is checked, all formatting of the citation will come from how it is listed in the document (e.g. underlined, italicized, etc.).
5. In the Category field, use the drop-down arrow (Word 97) to select what category of citations you want in your table of authorities. For this exercise, select All. (Word 2000+ users can select All from the list of categories.)
6. If you want your entries to have dot leaders in the table, you have a choice of three different leader styles from the drop-down list. Alternatively, if you do not want them, you can select (none).
7. After you have made your choices with the options available, click OK and your table of authorities is generated.

Updating a Table of Authorities

If there have been edits to the document that has been marked for a table of authorities, and new cites have been added, you can repeat the steps for marking entries into the table of authorities that was in the exercise on marking entries. If new short citations have been made for a citation that had previously been marked, highlight the long citation, press ALT+SHIFT+I, and select Mark All.

CK Note: Word 2007-2019 Insert Table of Authorities is through the References Tab.

Changing the Appearance of the Table of Authorities - CK Note

A Table of Authorities is a Field in Word. It looks like: { TOA \h \c "1" }. (You cannot simply type a field like this; the braces must be inserted by Word itself!) The "switches" are inserted automatically by the choices you select when you Insert the Table of Authorities. You can manually edit or insert these switches if you wish.

The paragraph formatting of the Table of Authorities, itself, is determined by the Style Table of Authorities. You need to modify this style to make changes in the appearance of your Table of Authorities that you can't get from the choices offered by Word. If you just modify the format directly, your changes will be lost when the table is updated.

Creating a Single Table of Authorities for Multiple Documents - CK Note

It is possible to create a single Table of Authorities for multiple documents. That TOA should be a separate document containing RD fields. (Referenced Document)

The fields needed for that could be in the format:

{ RD "Chapter 1.docx" \f }
{ RD "Chapter 2.docx" \f }
{ TOA }

The above is for all of the documents in the same folder.

Note that the braces {} cannot simply be typed. You need to have Word insert a field.
Using Fields in Microsoft Word - a Tutorial in the Intermediate Users' Guide to Microsoft Word

 

Shauna Kelly demonstrates using the Table of Authorities feature to create a list of technical terms in Word in her page on Creating a Glossary.

 

Inserting / Creating a Caption for a Table (Figure / Picture / Equation)

You can label certain parts of documents using captions, which can be automatically numbered. You can tell Word to insert such captions automatically as you add a table / picture / figure / equation. The process is essentially the same to add captions for any of these document elements. Here we will look at captions for Tables.

Captions can appear above or below the marked object and can be sequentially numbered. To manually add a caption to an object like a table, you select the object and the use the References feature to add a Caption. In earlier versions of Word, this is done using the Insert > References command on the menu:

Insert Caption command (Word 2003)

In the Ribbon versions of Word a Caption is inserted using the Insert Caption command on the References Tab ribbon.

Insert Caption Command (Ribbon version - Word 2010)

Note that the "tooltip" explaining the command talks about images and tells you that the caption appears below an object, the same command is used for all captions and the caption can appear above or below the object. Either method brings up the Caption dialog box.

Caption Dialog box - you can type in additional text to label your caption

Word will suggest a label for your caption, in this case Table 1. You can modify this by typing additional text or change the label altogether using the "New Label" button. The numbering button can be used to change or format the numbering. The AutoCaption button can be used to tell Word to add a caption whenever you insert this type of object. Note: Custom labels you create are saved on your computer and can be used again in different documents. Custom labels are not saved with the document, though. If you edit your document on another computer and want to add a caption with one of your custom labels, you will need to re-create it.

When you insert any kind of Caption, manually or automatically, what Word does is insert a SEQ Field with the Label chosen. This Caption uses the built-in Paragraph Style "Caption." It is that Style that controls the appearance of the Caption (font/size/color). That Style is also used to find captions for use in creating a Table of Figures.

Table Caption with Field Code displayed in Caption Style - Word 2021

If you use the Insert Caption function in Word, these fields in the Caption Style can be used to create a Table of Figures or a Table of Tables or a Table of Equations, etc. Captions for a Table cannot be inside the table.

Note that Custom Labels for Captions are not stored in the document, but on the computer. The ones you insert will continue to work. However, if you create a custom label and use it, if you use your document on a different computer, you will need to recreate the label if you want to use it. For the numbering to work, you need for it to be exactly the same.

If the document is used on a computer with different language settings for Word, the built-in labels will also be different (in the other language). Again, you need the labels you use to be the same for numbering to work.

Chapter Numbering for Captions

You can use chapter numbering in captions. To do this, your chapters must start with a style set for numbering. See How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Ribbon Versions of Word by Shauna Kelly for instructions on doing that. You click on the Numbering button in the Insert Caption dialog and tell Word which style has your numbering. You can choose the style which designates the beginning of your chapter in the Caption Numbering dialog. Numbering of captions will restart with each chapter.

Create a Table of Figures - or Illustrations - or Tables or Equations - CK Note

I only want part of a heading (or caption) to appear in my Table of Contents (Figures)

This can be done, since Word 2002, at least, using a Style Separator. The part of the logical heading paragraph (or caption) that you do not want in your Table of Contents must be formatted in a different paragraph Style.

I went into this is some depth in answer to this question in Super User. In that, I show how to have the word "Figure" appear in the caption but not in the Table of Figures.

See also Insert a Table of Figures - Microsoft Support

Indices (Indexes)

Footnotes and Endnotes

Footnotes and endnotes are inevitable parts of working with complex legal documents. With Word, footnotes (listed on the bottom of the page) and endnotes (listed at the end of a document or a section) can be created, edited, and deleted with a great amount of ease. You can have them automatically number throughout your document, or use custom marks (symbols) - whichever you prefer. Moreover, to view them for reference or for editing is extremely easy.

CK Note: In Word 2007 and later Footnotes and Endnotes start from the References Tab on the Ribbon.

 

Practice: Insert a Footnote

1. Open a document in which you want to add footnotes.
2. From the View menu, choose Normal (or press ALT+CTRL+N).
3. Move your insertion point to the end of the sentence where you want to place the footnote reference mark.
4. From the Insert menu, choose Footnote, and the Footnote and Endnote dialog box appears:

CK Note: In Word 2007 and later you start this process through the References Tab on the Ribbon.

5. This is where you can choose to insert a Footnote or Endnote. You can also choose whether you want an AutoNumber (1,2,3) or a Custom mark (such as symbols). For the purposes of this exercise, insert a Footnote that is AutoNumbered.
6. This will open a footnote pane at the bottom of your document window showing you the footnote. Type at the insertion point to enter the footnote. As you can see, your document window is also showing where you placed the footnote reference mark within the text.

7. To close the footnote pane, click Close on the footnote pane bar.
8. Keep this document open for the next exercise.

Viewing and Editing Footnotes and Endnotes

There are various methods to viewing footnotes and endnotes. The first way you have already seen in the preceding exercise by viewing within the footnote pane in Normal view. When you insert a footnote in Page Layout/Print Layout view, you get a different look footnotes. You can also choose View, Footnotes. This is the how you will see footnotes when you are in Page Layout (in Word 97)/Print Layout (in Word 2000+) view:

If you need to edit the footnote, you can just click within the footnote and start typing. Another way to view footnotes is by hovering your mouse arrow over the reference mark in the document. A Screen Tip will pop up and allow you to see the text in the footnote:

You can also browse by footnotes or endnotes by using the Select Browse Object. This button allows you to browse by a number of different options:

When you click on the Browse by Object button, you get the following option box:

After you have selected either browse by footnote or endnote, use the blue double arrows on the top and bottom of the Browse by Object button to move to the previous or the next footnote or endnote.

Editing a footnote or endnote is just as easy as entering text within the document itself. You just view the footnote or endnote, click and type.

1. From the View menu, choose Normal (or press ALT+CTRL+N).
2. From the View menu, choose Footnotes to open the footnote pane.
3. Click within the footnote pane, and edit. When you are finished with your changes, click Close.

You can also cut and paste a footnote or endnote from one place in your document to another just by highlighting the footnote reference mark within the document and choosing Edit, Cut (or by alternate-clicking and selecting Cut), move your insertion point to new site for the footnote and choose Edit, Paste. When you cut or copy a footnote or endnote reference mark, Word automatically takes the text of the footnote with the reference mark.

Converting Footnotes and Endnotes

If there is a change in plans and the footnotes need to become endnotes, or vice versa, Word will quickly convert your footnotes to endnotes with a click of the mouse.

Practice: Convert Footnotes to Endnotes

1. Create a new document with one or two footnotes.
2. From the Insert menu, choose Footnotes, and click Options.

3. Select the All Endnotes tab and choose a Number format for your converted footnotes.
4. Click Convert.

5. Click OK, then at the Options dialog box click OK. The last step is to close the Footnote and Endnote dialog by clicking Close. Your footnotes have now become endnotes.

If you want to reverse the procedure, just go through steps 2-4, and the following dialog box appears:

Then repeat steps 5 and 6, and your endnotes have been converted back to footnotes.

We have all used bookmarks at one time or another. We've dog-eared pages and even used sticky notes to mark where we have left off in a book. Word does the same thing in long documents. If you have bookmarked a paragraph or heading in your document, the next time you open the document you can use Goto to move to your bookmarked location.

This is especially handy when you find that there are parts of your document that are constantly being updated. You can use bookmarks to jump in and out of those problem spots quickly.

Practice: Insert a Bookmark

1. Select any text on the page.
2. From the Insert menu, choose Bookmark (or press CTRL+SHIFT+F5).

(In Word 2007 and later the control to insert a Bookmark is on the Insert Tab of the Ribbon. The Ctrl+Shift+F5 shortcut continues to work.)

3. Create a name for your bookmark in the Bookmark name field (you cannot start a Bookmark name with a number, and Word won't allow spaces within the name).
4. Click Add. (Notice that Word has added this new bookmark to the bookmark list.)
5. Click Close.

Navigating With Bookmarks

Now that you have marked your document with bookmarks, let's go over the easy ways to move throughout your document using them.

Practice: Find your Bookmarks

1. Press F5 on your keyboard. The Find and Replace dialog box appears, with the Go To tab activated. In the Go to what list, find Bookmark.
2. One of your bookmarks will fill the Enter bookmark name field. If this is not the bookmark you are looking for, click the drop-down arrow and select the bookmark that you want to find. Click Go To, and Word will take you to the bookmarked location.

   

3. You can go to the next bookmark by pressing F5 again and selecting the new bookmark name and clicking Go To.
   

Troubleshooting Complex Documents

I see "Error, Bookmark not defined" instead of my page numbers in my table of contents.

You need to update your table of contents by clicking within the table and pressing F9 on your keyboard, and then selecting Update entire table.

CK Note: In Word 2000 you'll probably have to move into the TOC using the arrow keys rather than by clicking in the TOC because of the default hyperlinks built into a Word 2000 TOC.

Why do I see { TOC \o "1-3" } instead of my table of contents? (Or alternately, { TOA \h \c 1 \p \f } instead of a table of authorities.)

What you are seeing is the field code that Word uses to complete the resulting table of contents or table of authorities. If you press ALT+F9, you will toggle the field code back to the result of the code seeing the expected table.

CK Note: If this doesn't work, the field codes were probably "toggled" rather than displayed. Press Alt+F9 again and then if needed Shift+F9.

I deleted a footnote, but now my footnotes seem to be off by one.

When you delete a footnote, you must delete the reference mark from within the document text. If you do not, even though the text and the reference mark are gone from the footnote pane, Word will not delete the footnote reference mark from the document. Highlight the reference mark for the unwanted footnote, and delete it. Your references should now be numbered correctly.

I tried to edit my footnote by deleting a paragraph mark and "Not a valid action for footnotes” appeared.

You can format this paragraph mark, but it cannot be deleted.

I pasted a selection that contained a bookmark into a new document, I tried using GoTo to find it, but it wasn't listed in my bookmarks.

Make sure the selection contains a space before the bookmark. Then when you paste the selection into the new document, the bookmark will be there.

I have material in one or more textboxes and it does not show up in my Table of Contents, Index, Document Map, Navigation Pane...

Before Word 2007, no headings in Textboxes would be picked up in a Table of Contents, this is still true of XE entries (Index). These do not appear in the Document Map or Navigation Pane. You may want to use a Frame instead.

Here is a link to my article on this: Headings that do not show up in the Navigation Pane or in a Table of Contents.
Here is a link to a short demonstration document. Linked Styles Demo

I have Headings that do not show up in my Table of Contents even though they are the correct level.

It is common to have Headings applied to something other than a whole paragraph not show up in the Table of Contents.
This is because they have been applied as "Linked Styles."

Here is a link to my article on this: Headings that do not show up in the Navigation Pane or in a Table of Contents.
Here is a link to a short demonstration document. Linked Styles Demo

Some of my Table of Contents entries do not have a dot leader even though I selected dot leader when I set it up.

This can happen when there is a tab character in the line being indexed. This often occurs with automatic numbering.

Dot leaders are set in the TOC styles. The solution is to delete or move the tab stop setting in the TOC style that is interfering with the dot leader.

I need two columns in my Table of Contents.

This note came as a result of a question asked on the Microsoft Answers forum. The user wanted to include a column of reference numbers as well as the page number. The reference numbers were in the original heading.

The solution is to separate the reference number from the rest of the source text by a tab character and then modify the relevant TOC style to include a tab setting before the area for page numbers and to move the right indent in that style to the left of the area for the column.

The m-space followed by a tab is for the situation where there is no reference number. For a tab in the source text to be reflected in the TOC, it must be followed by some text (other than an ordinary space). See the original question and discussions for more on this.

 

I edited a heading I had already cross-referenced, and I went to update the cross-reference it didn't update.

You probably deleted the bookmark brace ([ or ]) that contained the reference. When editing a heading that has been marked for cross-reference remember that the heading has been marked as a bookmark. This is how Word knows where to find the reference in the document.

When editing a cross-referenced heading try this method: Click before the last word in the heading, type in the new/additional text along with the last word, and delete the next instance of that word. That way you will not delete the bookmark brace. You can now update the cross-reference.

I want to insert a Table of Contents (Authorities) inside the first column of a Word Table. I want my TOC in the first column and have other text in the right column. The page numbers disappear!

This is because the Styles for the entries are set for a full page. You need to modify the Styles.

The screenshot below shows the problem and its source in the paragraph formatting of the Table of Contents style used.

What is needed is changes to both the right-tab position and the right indent for the style. Click on modify the style for directions on modifying your styles.

Again, click on modify the style for directions on modifying your styles.

Some of my Table of Contents Lines Contain Different Formatting

The formatting of the Table of Contents is set by TOC styles. The Table of Contents disregards the formatting set using the Style of the source text. It does pay attention, though, to direct formatting (not applied by using the paragraph style). So, if your TOC picks up various headings (the norm) and one of the headings has direct formatting (not applied through the Heading paragraph Style) the Table of Contents line with that heading will pick up and use that direct formatting. For instance, if you make a Heading or part of a Heading Red, the line in the table of contents may have the same red coloring.

If, instead, you have a separate Style variation for that Heading (i.e. "Heading 3 Red") the Table of Contents will not pick up the formatting.

A variation on this appears if you have one of your Heading Styles set to be ALL CAPS. With such formatting, the case you use when you type the heading does not change the appearance of the heading. That is: "ThIS seLECTIon WILL appear" looks like: "THIS SELECTION WILL APPEAR" in your heading but will appear with the case actually typed in the Table of Contents. Fixing this requires changing the actual case of the text in the heading, not just the displayed case.

See Direct Formatting and the Table of Contents (above) and Effect of Direct Formatting by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP.

Table of Figures Problems

Cross-Reference Problems

See Word MVP Lene Fredborg's page on Troubleshooting Cross-References

Captions Problems

Captions in my Word document all change to figure if I change only one caption to figure. See Stefan Blom's response in this Answers Question.

More Trouble-shooting Complex Documents