Inserting a Cross-Reference to the Last Style on a Page

Summary: It is often helpful to reference a specific heading in the header or footer of a page, and have that reference change on each page. This is easy to do using the STYLEREF function, as described in this tip. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

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. As an example, suppose you wanted your header (or footer) to refer to the last heading on a page, as is frequently done in reference material. You can use the following steps to set up this type of cross-reference.

Position the insertion point where you want the cross-reference to appear (such as in a header or footer).
Press Ctrl+F9 to insert field brackets. Make sure the insertion point stays between the brackets.
Type STYLEREF followed by the name of the formatting style used to format the paragraph you want to cross-reference. The name of the formatting style must be enclosed in quotes. Follow this with the \l switch. Thus, if you wanted to cross-reference the heading 4 style, you would use this within the field brackets: styleref "heading 4" \l.
Press F9 to update the field information. Word replaces the field with the text of the last paragraph on the page formatted with the specified style.

Tip #1067 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Inserting a Cross-Reference to the Last Style on a Page