I've been tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to get Word file names to default to a title in the header section.  Because the title for documents created from my template will be in the header, Word will not read the H1 style there for the default.   Setting the document title through the document properties or by way of a title field/building block does not cause the default text in the Save As... dialogue box to change.  It changes if I close the dialogue box and hit ctrl + S again, but that's pretty much irrelevant to users.  It also changes immediately, for some reason, if I set the title through the advanced options dialogue box within document properties.  I've looked at a lot of articles and posts at this point so it may be that I'm having a peculiar problem that needs a particular sort of help, but I'm hoping to get this fixed without resorting to a docm format.  I will very much appreciate any advice. 

Try, instead, putting your title in the body of your template, perhaps using the Title style. Then in the Header, use a StyleRef Field to pull the text from that Style. Once you have done that, click on the box to have a different first page. This moves the header onto the continuation pages so you do not have the name appearing twice on the first page.

Word does not look in headers for text to use in a document name.

Thank you for your reply.  This was good advice.  I had abandoned the idea because of the need to have users enter information into the title space on the first page.  I've created a modified version of the template with a title section that mimics the appearance of the header on subsequent pages.  I'm experimenting now with using document properties to link the fields in this title space with the header information.  I think I'm okay with using the "status" document property as-is but all of the entries are currently content controls (two date pickers and a drop down).  I would like to continue to use these for convenience and limiting errors, but I'm having limited success in my experiments.  Please let me know if you have any further advice.

Select the Content Control that has your title information.

Format that CC using a character or paragraph style that is only used for that purpose.

Use a StyleRef Field to reflect the title in headers.

Look at the link given on the StyleRef Field.

I was getting hung up on the novelty of playing with custom document properties.  You're right, of course.  I was able to get all of the fields to reference the controls by choosing "use style to format contents" in their properties.  Thanks alot!  Now I just need to figure out how to remove the "<" from the output.

Got it.  The angle bracket is apparently a Word 2007 bug I was able to deal with by making them hidden text.  Thanks again for the advice.