Word Automatic Tables
Senior 3 · ICT
Word Automatic Tables
Lesson 1 of 4
45 min
The S3 writing club is printing an anthology of its members' stories. The editor typed “Page 7”, “Page 8” and so on at the bottom of every page, and made each story title big and bold by hand. Then a new story arrived for page 4. Every page number after it was now wrong, and the contents list at the front pointed to the wrong pages. It took an evening to fix by hand.
Word can do all of this itself. In S1 you inserted a page number and met the Heading styles. This unit builds a long document the professional way: structure first, with heading styles, automatic page numbers and sections; then the tables of contents, figures and tables that Word builds from them; and finally mail merge, which builds a whole stack of letters from one.
Definition
Field: a placeholder in a document that Word fills in and keeps up to date by itself, such as the current page number, the total number of pages or today's date.
Style: a named set of formatting (font, size, colour, spacing) that can be applied in one click and changed everywhere at once.
Heading style: a built-in style (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3 …) that also tells Word the level of a heading, so it can show the document's outline and build a table of contents.
A heading made bold and large by hand only looks like a heading. A heading given a heading style is one: Word knows it starts a new part, and at which level. The levels nest like a book's parts:
| Style | Used for | Example in the anthology | Shortcut |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | The document's name, once | Voices of S3 | none |
| Heading 1 | Main parts or chapters | Part One: Stories of Home | Ctrl + Alt + 1 |
| Heading 2 | Sections inside a Heading 1 | The Last Bus to Huye | Ctrl + Alt + 2 |
| Heading 3 | Sub-sections inside a Heading 2 | About the author | Ctrl + Alt + 3 |
| Normal | Ordinary paragraphs | The story text | Ctrl + Shift + N |
To apply a style, click anywhere in the paragraph and click the style in Home → Styles. You do not need to select the text first. Then tick View → Navigation Pane: a panel opens on the left listing every heading, indented by level. Click a heading to jump to it; drag a heading up or down to move that whole section, with all the text under it.
Mock-up drawn by Ganzaa. The highlighted heading in the Navigation Pane is the one the cursor is in. Indents show the level: Heading 2 sits under Heading 1, Heading 3 under Heading 2.
Suppose the club wants every Heading 1 in dark green, 18 pt. Do not reformat each heading. Change the style:
Every Heading 1 in the document changes together. A quicker way: format one heading by hand, select it, then right-click Heading 1 in the gallery → Update Heading 1 to Match Selection.
Numbered headings. Reports often number their headings 1, 1.1, 1.2, 2, 2.1. Click in the first Heading 1, then Home → Multilevel List and pick the list whose preview reads “1 Heading 1, 1.1 Heading 2, 1.1.1 Heading 3”. Word numbers every heading by its level, and renumbers them if you move or insert a section.
Warning
Three habits that break a long document
A page number is a PAGE field placed in the header or footer, so it repeats on every page and shows each page's own number.
No number on the cover. Double-click the footer, and on the Header & Footer tab tick Different First Page. The first page gets its own, empty footer; it is still counted, so the next page shows 2.
Definition
Section break: a mark that divides a document into parts called sections. Each section can have its own page numbering, headers, footers, margins and orientation. Example: a Next Page section break starts the new section on a new page.
Link to Previous: a Header & Footer setting that makes a section's header or footer copy the one before it. It is on by default; turn it off to give the section a different header or footer.
Books number their front pages (contents, preface) in small Roman numerals, and start 1 again where the main text begins. That needs two sections.
Diagram drawn by Ganzaa. The cover is page i but shows nothing, because Different First Page is ticked.
Worked example 1: numbering the anthology
The order matters: if you change section 2's footer while it is still linked, section 1 changes with it.
Worked example 2: a report with one landscape page
A 10-page science report needs one wide table on page 6, printed sideways. Changing Layout → Orientation → Landscape on page 6 alone would turn every page. Instead, put a Next Page section break at the start of page 6 and another at the start of page 7. Page 6 is now section 2: click in it and choose Landscape. Pages 1–5 and 7–10 stay portrait. The page numbers still run 1 to 10, because each section is set to Continue from previous section.
Marcus Weaver-Hightower: setting two different page numberings in the same Word document, Roman numerals for the front pages and 1, 2, 3 for the main text. Watch for the section break and the Link to Previous button.
Tip
Using LibreOffice Writer? The ideas are the same. Heading styles are in the Paragraph Styles box (Heading 1, Heading 2 …); the Navigator (F5) is the Navigation Pane. Insert a page number with Insert → Page Number into a footer made with Insert → Header and Footer → Footer. Restarting numbers is done with a manual break: Insert → More Breaks → Manual Break, tick Change page number.
Make a short booklet called Our School Clubs. Real text is best, but any paragraphs will do: typing =rand(4,5) and pressing Enter makes Word insert four paragraphs of sample text.
Practice
Sources and credits
