Windows, Word 2007, networked office environment
Okay, folks, here's a cute one, but a little long to describe properly. I am the go-to person for Office problems, but this one has me stumped.

A colleague sent me a problem document, in which the first page of the appendices, page A-1, kept updating as page 3.8-1 in the table of contents (TOC). 3.8 would be the next Level 2 heading in the document; 3.7 was the last one in the previous section. However, this is a new section, i.e., there was a new-page section break, and it starts with a non-numbered heading, Appendices, which is what the TOC is picking up. The page numbers of all document sections are in the footer.

The first thing I did was to unlink the footer and header of A-1 from the precious section. I updated the TOC and got A-1. That was easy. Unfortunately, too easy.

I returned the document to my colleague as well as another co-worker. Problem: on their machines (also Windows, running Office 2007), the TOC looked fine until updated, upon which the unwanted 3.8-1 returned.

I sat down to investigate at my colleague's machine. When I inserted a simple page break at the top of A-1, forcing the text on that page to a new one, lo and behold, the page number with the page break changed to 3.8-1, and the next page stayed at A-2. Removing the page break returned the page number from 3.8-1 to A-1. I replaced the page number and formatted it, updated the TOC once again, and bingo! 3.8-1 in the TOC. I have spent some time with this to no avail, trying various things.

I sent the document back to myself, opened it, and updated the TOC. A-1, as if nothing had ever happened! And, of course, no 3.8-1 in the footer if I inserted a page break in the front of the section.

I have to assume that something is set in their Word options that is not in mine, but what could be causing a page number to pick up the last heading in the previous section, despite delinking footers and headers, etc., stumps me.

Any takers?