Propagate footers across Section Breaks?

[That70sHeidi]

We have long documents with many section breaks to divide chapters and their
numbering. When the footer citing the project number for the whole document
changes, is there a way to change the footer in each section without having
to search/replace or copy/paste?

 

[Jay Freedman]

We have long documents with many section breaks to divide chapters
and their numbering. When the footer citing the project number for
the whole document changes, is there a way to change the footer in
each section without having to search/replace or copy/paste?

Is there anything else in the footer(s) that differs from one section to
another?

If not -- that is, if all the sections' footers should look the same -- then
go to the footer of each section after the first, and click the button (on
the Header/Footer toolbar in Word 2003, or on the Header & Footer Tools
ribbon in Word 2007) to turn on "Link to Previous". Then a change in any
section's footer will be automatically carried to the other sections. The
headers can still be independent of each other.

If the footers have other things that do change from section to section,
then they must keep "Link to Previous" turned off (unless you can use
StyleRef fields, for things like section titles that can be pulled from the
main text). Then search/replace is required -- I wouldn't use copy/paste
unless there are very few sections.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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[Pamelia Caswell via OfficeKB.com]

If the project number appears on the cover or title page of the report, give
it its own paragraph style. Then use a styleref field in the footer. You
may also be able to put the project number in document properties and call it
from there, but I have little (& no recent) experience with that.

Pam