Numbering equations in Microsoft Word

The equation should be on its own line for this to make sense.

Numbering the equation

1. Put the cursor in front of the equation
2. Right click (or go to the Insert/Reference pulldown) and select Caption
3. Click New label...
4. Type Eq. and click Okay
5. Click Okay to accept

This puts Eq.1 in front of the equation. Naturally, on subsequent numberings you can leave out steps 3 to 5.

Bookmarking the equation

If you want to refer to this equation elsewhere in the document, you would prefer to do so using some kind of code word, eg, additive_linear_model, rather than by what Eq. number it happens to be when you insert the cross reference. For this you need a bookmark.

1. Select the entire caption, eg, select all of the letters Eq.1
2. Go to Insert/Bookmark
3. Give the bookmark a name, eg, additive_linear_model, then click Add

Referring to the equation

1. Place the cursor where you want to insert the equation number
2. Go to Insert/Reference/Cross-reference
3. Make sure the Reference type is bookmark and the insert reference to shows bookmark text
4. Select the bookmark you want, eg, additive_linear_model

This should give you a reference of the form Eq.1 (whether you like it or not). Naturally, the number updates if addititive_linear_model ceases to be the 1st numbered equation. Although you may have to toggle to print preview mode and back before you see the updated equation number in the text.

If you want the equations to start numbering from say 4 rather than 1, you can do this by editing the field codes. Right click the caption (or at least the number bit of the caption) and Toggle field codes to view the field codes, and Edit field... to edit them. If I ever need to do this, I will write down exactly what I did. For the moment, you'll just have to look up field switches in the help.