Turning on the ‘Update Fields Before Printing’ Option

Ever forgot to update your Word document table of contents before you sent to print?  Or may be you’ve committed the same cardinal sin when you’ve exported to pdf. You can avoid this very simply by turning on the ‘Update fields before printing‘ option.

To get this to work in Word 2013 and 2010 open the File tab and select Options.  View the Display options and then tick the Update fields before printing option as shown below. Word 2007 users click on the Office button and select Word Options. Word 2003 users click  Tools > Options > Print > Update fields.

This will also update any other fields such as cross-references. When you print or export/save to pdf you will now be prompted to update your table of contents.