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: Automatically Referencing Info Entered in a Table.

Automatically Referencing Info Entered in a Table

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 19, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Kees has a table in a Word document. (This is a Word table, not an Excel table.) If he types a word in cell A1 he would like that word to automatically appear in cell E6 or, possibly, in a cell in an entirely different table.

There is no way, within Word, to have the word automatically appear in cell E6 as you type it; that is beyond the capabilities of the program. However, you could make sure that whatever is in cell A1 is duplicated in cell E6 by relying on bookmarks:

Select the word in cell A1. (Don't include the end-of-cell marker; just select the word itself.)
Choose Bookmark from the Insert menu. Word displays the Bookmark dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Bookmark dialog box.

Enter a name for your bookmark, such as FirstWord (note that there are no spaces in the name).
Click on Add. Word Adds the bookmark.
Move to cell E6 or whatever cell you want to have the word appear.
Insert a field by pressing Ctrl+F9.
Within the field, type REF FirstWord (if you created a bookmark with a different name in step 4, use that name instead of FirstWord).
Press F9 to update the field.

Remember that fields are automatically updated when you print your document or when you manually update them (as described in other issues of WordTips). You should also understand that if someone modifies the text in cell A1, that it is possible the bookmark you defined in step 4 will be deleted. If this happens, the only solution is to recreate the bookmark.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12126) 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: Automatically Referencing Info Entered in a Table.

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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