Control over Headers and Footers

[mycroft]

Is there a way for me to obtain control over the content of my headers and footers? I do want to parse their content down to the content of a few individual pages, not big generalized parts/sections. If I type in the header /footer that I want, the content of previous ones I've typed is automatically changed to the new one.
My document is a very long "book" divided into 4 major Parts/Sections. I want the automatic numbering to be Part # - Page # as part of the Footer. I am using two-sided [facing] pages.
I want the left-hand [even] Header to be the Part Name [Heading level 1]
I want the right-hand [odd] Header to be Heading level 2
I want the left-hand [even] Footer to be Heading level 3, plus the automatic page numbering as above.
I want the right-hand [odd] Footer to be Heading level 4, plus the automatic page numbering as above.

What is the easiest way to achieve this? If I make each Heading level a new 'Section," can I retain the automatic part and page numbering? What will this do to the Navigator page as a TOC? The Footers with Heading levels 3 & 4 may only be a few pages long, so I want the Headers and Footers to assist in navigating the finished book.
Alternatively, I was hoping simply to type in the desired content for the finer divisions in the footers while retaining the automatic content of headers and numbering. But these carefully typed-in contents disappear as though the new footer were a correction for the entire document.
The buttons for Different Contents for headers and footers are grayed out. What causes them to be active? Can I somehow set the automatic content for the Headers and footers to be "heading level" 1/2/3/4/ as desired?
Thanks...

[martin]

Let's start with this small question:

The buttons for Different Contents for headers and footers are grayed out. What causes them to be active?

Those buttons are enabled for any section beyond the first. The first section defines the initial header/footer for the document, which conceptually means they are always "different", so that's why those options are disabled for section one.

When I say "sections", I mean those delimited/created by inserting section breaks. How these section breaks match up with the actual structure of your document is up to you, just know that headers/footers (and some other settings like margins) are all controlled on a per-section basis. So you will need to have section breaks at those points where you want to change those settings.

Hopefully that explains the situation and gives you some general insight on how you might control your headers/footers. On to some specifics:

My document is a very long "book" divided into 4 major Parts/Sections. I want the automatic numbering to be Part # - Page # as part of the Footer. I am using two-sided [facing] pages.
I want the left-hand [even] Header to be the Part Name [Heading level 1]
I want the right-hand [odd] Header to be Heading level 2
I want the left-hand [even] Footer to be Heading level 3, plus the automatic page numbering as above.
I want the right-hand [odd] Footer to be Heading level 4, plus the automatic page numbering as above.

I'm not sure I understand when you say you want your headers/footers to be a heading level (eg: "to be Heading level 2"). You can certainly apply a "Heading 2" paragraph style in the header/footer, or insert any other content, as you please.

What will this do to the Navigator page as a TOC?

No content from a header/footer will appear in the TOC, even if it is marked with a Heading style. This is intentional. If you would like to have an entry in the TOC around the start of a chapter/section you will want to apply a Heading style (or manually use "Include in TOC") to a particular piece of text in the main document body.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.

[mycroft]

Thank Martin,
You have answered my question. I was using "Section" to be the division of the whole project: that is, the four Parts of the total project. I now realize that I have to add a "Section break" each time I wish the Headers/Footers to change. I should have caught this (but I had hoped it wasn't true).

The other part of the question referred to the content/text of the Headers/Footers, not their styles, which I have set .

As an example, In the Navigator/Outline:

Part 1 - The Revolutionary War [Heading Level 1] I want the even-Header to say: The Revolutionary War
New Jersey [Heading Level 2] I want the odd-Header to say: New Jersey)
Battle of Monmouth [Heading Level 3] I want the even-Footer to have the Part number plus the automatic Page number plus Battle of Monmouth
4th Virginia Regiment [Heading Level 4] I want the odd-Footer to say 4th Virginia Regiment plus Part number plus the automatic Page number.

Because of the new-section requirement to change the content, I see that I will have to enter the Part number myself, and watch out for the automatic page numbering as I go. My question was, is there a way to directly correlate the content of the Headers/Footers by calling out that they should include the content of the various Heading Levels?
That is, can this content be automated as well? With your answer, I believe not, so I will type it in directly and use Section breaks to control it.
Thanks again.

[martin]

We're always happy to help, and glad we've cleared up the main conceptual problem.

Because of the new-section requirement to change the content, I see that I will have to enter the Part number myself, and watch out for the automatic page numbering as I go.

You can insert automatic section and page numbers into the header/footer, and you can customize the section number for every section in your document. The default is to increment each section number at every section break, but you can choose your own custom restart/increment numbers for each section if you please. If you need any help with this, let us know.

My question was, is there a way to directly correlate the content of the Headers/Footers by calling out that they should include the content of the various Heading Levels?
That is, can this content be automated as well? With your answer, I believe not, so I will type it in directly and use Section breaks to control it.

You are correct: at this time you cannot automate the content in your headers/footers based on the headings in the main document.