The 210-Page Proposal With Six Broken Cross-References

Root cause: a Word cross-reference is a field code pointing at a bookmark that Word creates for a heading, caption or numbered item. It breaks when the target paragraph is deleted, renumbered or pasted in from another file carrying stale bookmarks. Manually typed text like 'see Section 4.2' is not a field at all, so it can never update - it is guaranteed to rot.

Fix and structure:

1. Bind numbering to styles. Apply Heading 1/Heading 2 and attach a multilevel list to those styles so '4.2' is generated, not typed. Renumbering then happens everywhere at once.
2. Insert real references. Insert > Cross-reference > Reference type: Heading > Insert reference to: Heading number (and Heading text where useful). Replace the six broken fields and the manually typed 'Section 4.2' strings the same way.
3. Refresh fields as a routine step, not an emergency. Ctrl+A then F9 (choose 'Update entire table') after every merge; print preview also updates fields depending on settings.
4. Rebuild the TOC from heading styles and update the whole table, not just page numbers.
5. Headers/footers: four section breaks, with Link to Previous switched off for each section that needs a different header or numbering restart.

Test: the six previously broken fields must resolve, and deleting and re-inserting a middle section must renumber section 4 onwards without any manual edit.

Reject master documents. They are a known corruption and header/numbering hazard on a document this size, and the continuous-section-break behaviour interacts badly with your four header/footer treatments. The time saved is not worth the recovery work in the final 48 hours.

Recommended model:

• One authoritative file in SharePoint or OneDrive with co-authoring and AutoSave for the three days when most people are online. Agree who owns which chapter and which heading levels, so nobody renumbers someone else's section.
• For the offline authors: issue each a chapter-only file built from the master template, so styles and numbering match when it comes back. They return it as a tracked-changes document; you insert it into the master with Track Changes on, or keep chapters as separate files until the merge gate and assemble at a scheduled cut-off.
• Merge gates: one merge per review cycle, not continuous. Record a version before each merge so you can diff and roll back.
• Freeze time: no edits after 17:00 on day eight; day nine morning is reserved for field update, TOC rebuild and a PDF proof, with the portal upload done by one named person.

Why not email-a-single-file-round-robin: with five authors the version graph is unbounded and the reviewer who turns off Track Changes (see next task) proves the failure mode already.

Do not eyeball it. Reading two 210-page documents side by side will miss edits, and a missed edit in a submitted proposal is unrecoverable.

Now:

1. Keep a clean copy of the version you sent them.
2. Review > Compare > Compare Documents, original = the version sent, revised = the returned file. Word generates a third document with every difference marked as tracked.
3. Walk the generated changes, accept or reject each, and check the count is plausible (~60). Spot-check formatting-only noise, which Compare reports heavily.
4. Merge into the master only after the accepted changes are in, so the master's own tracked changes stay separable.

For the next cycle:

• Turn Track Changes on in the copies you distribute and use Lock Tracking with a password so it cannot be switched off by the recipient.
• Put 'Track Changes must be on - untracked returns will be compared, not merged' in the cover note with the deadline.
• Keep the Compare fallback in the process anyway; it is the only defence against someone pasting in text from another tool.