Dear fellow word users,

Word 2013 on 64 bits windows 10 OS here.

I have a big thesis divided in several chapters (one document for each chapter). My figure, table, equation and page numbering runs through all the thesis. To automatize field updating, I first used master documents. But I quickly learned the golden rule of master documents: "there are two types of master documents, those that are corrupt, and those that will be corrupt soon". I made several saves and used the ten golden laws of master documents. So, I didn't lose my data and was finally able to make a first version of my thesis. However, this took ages due to the various inconvenient features and bugs of master documents (such as mixed sections breaks, that impact negatively headers of the various documents).

So, I'm looking for a flexible method to successively number all figures, tables, equations, pages for all my chapters without using a master document, to generate my last print without inconvenience (that is, once I proof-read the pdf of the whole document, and spot problems in it, I can quickly fix them and generate a new pdf of the whole document).

For example, my second chapter starts at Figure 15, Table 4, equation 18 and page 31. How to make it automatically start here without manually configurating start numberings of each chapter, and without using the inconvenient master documents?

Thanks in advance,
Best regards!