Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Inserting Summary Information.

Inserting Summary Information

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 26, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Word keeps track of summary information for a document. You can either use this summary information, or you can ignore it. Some of the summary information is automatically created for you while other parts need to be entered manually. One of the pieces of information maintained is the author of a document. This is originally set to be the Word user name, but you can change the author name at any time. Word allows you to insert summary information such as the author's name directly in your document, and have it updated automatically if you should ever change the information. This is done by following these steps:

  1. Position the insertion point where you want the author name inserted.
  2. Choose Field from the Insert menu. The Field dialog box is displayed.
  3. Choose Document Information from the Categories list. (See Figure 1.)
  4. Figure 1. The Field dialog box.

  5. Choose Author from the Field Names list.
  6. Click on OK.

There are many different bits of summary information you may want to include in your document. Here are a few:

Field Name Description
Author Name of the document's author
CreateDate Date the document was created
FileName Document's name and location on disk
FileSize Size of the document's disk file
LastSavedBy Word user name of the last person to save the file
NumChars Total number of characters in the document
NumPages Total number of pages in the document
SaveDate Date the document was last saved
Subject Subject of the document
Template Name of the document's template
Title Document's title

You should note that not all of these fields can be inserted by selecting the Document Information category (step 3). For instance, CreateDate and SaveDate are inserted, instead, by first selecting the Date and Time category.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (386) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Inserting Summary Information.

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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