Real World Computing

In my last post on reusing text via bookmarks in Word, I mentioned that there was a problem with the reused text retaining formatting.  Sure, you can reformat the text to look how you want but when you update it, then new text takes on characteristics of the old.  You end up with text that looks like this.... There's an easy (but not obvious) way to fix this; Getting into Reveal Codes Mode on Field So, first we need to know exactly what makes our fields tick.  So, click on one of your fields and then press Alt+F9.  The field will change to show the code. In my case, the code is; {REF Title \h \* MERGEFORMAT } This is more or less the default setting (the word title is the name of the bookmark I inserted).  Mergeformat means that the format of the original text is being merged. To change this option, simply click on the code and overtype it. In this case, we're going to change MERGEFORMAT to CHARFORMAT. Once this is done, Press Alt+F9 to t...

I guess this is a bit of an oldie but I was surprised how many people didn't know about it.  Why would you do this? If you find yourself opening old documents and then doing a search and replace to change a name, a date or a version number, then this is the tip for you.  It allows you to write your key information down once and then have it auto-update. If you do a lot of contracts or quotes - or basically any kind of document based on a template, then you'll find this very handy. Getting Started (Bookmarking the Original Text). Open a Word document and type in some useful repeating text; eg: Customer Name:  MyCompany Limited 1. Highlight that text 2. Select the Insert Tab on the Ribbon. 3. Click the Bookmark Button A dialog box will appear. 4. Type a name for your bookmark.   This can be any name but it should be something that you'll recognise when you see it. 5. Click Add. Inserting the Bookmarked Text So, now that you ...