Feel Tips - Print Word Section Setup

The print feature of Microsoft Word offers a lot of flexibility. But there is no direct solution to print Word sections. However, there’s one trick most of us might not know can help you do it. If you know the section’s number, you can print that section. The secret is to combine the section number with the character “s” in the form ssectionnumber. But how to know a section’s number in Word document?

Luckily, there’s an easy method to know a section’s number. Right-click the status bar and check Section. In the status bar, Microsoft Word will display the Section indicator. That’s the number we need.  In Word 2003, this indicator is shown by default. 

After we get the section number, we need position the insertion point in the section which we want to print to update the indicator accordingly. Then, follow the steps below to use the number in print string.

1. Click the File tab and click Print in the left pane. (Choose Print from the File menu in Word 2003)
2. Choose Print Custom Range from the first setting’s dropdown. (You don’t have to choose anything in Word 2003; just enter the section code in the Pages option in the Print Range section.
3. Preface the section name with the “s” character. For instance, to print section two, enter “s2”.
4. Then, click Print. (In Word 2003, click OK.)

By using this trick, we can also combine this section-printing code with page numbers. Just separate the page numbers with comma characters. For example, to print page 3, section 4, and pages 13 through 15, we need to use the following string: 3, s4, 13-15.