Bookmarks, TOC fields, PageRef fields disappear after print previe

G

Guest

Whenever I print preview or print a Word document containing a Table of
Contents, Page references (using styles) or bookmarks that I have inserted
and named, all of them disappear. When I select Insert --> bookmark (show
hidden bookmarks) all that appear are the defunct _toc fields. The field
codes retain the names they were assigned (PAGEREF _Ref***) or the bookmark
name I assigned, but the bookmarks can't be found.
I presume this is a bug, but I am using Word 2003 SP2 and cannot find any
information about this. Are there workarounds? Can bookmarks be locked
without preventing field result updating? I have now turned off 'update
fields' and 'update links' from the printing options, but I don't know if
this will solve the problem, and there certainly should be a better solution.
Thanks for any assistance or ideas.
 
S

Stefan Blom

To prevent Word from printing field codes: On the Tools menu, click
Options. Click the Print tab. Clear the "Field codes" option, and
click OK.

To prevent Word from displaying field codes, clear the "Field codes"
option on the View tab of Tools | Options (or press Alt+F9, which acts
as a toggle).

I can't explain what has happened to your custom bookmarks, though.
You may want to display them (Tools | Options, View tab, check
"Bookmarks", click OK), to see if that sheds any light.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


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Whenever I print preview or print a Word document containing a Table of
Contents, Page references (using styles) or bookmarks that I have inserted
and named, all of them disappear. When I select Insert --> bookmark (show
hidden bookmarks) all that appear are the defunct _toc fields. The field
codes retain the names they were assigned (PAGEREF _Ref***) or the bookmark
name I assigned, but the bookmarks can't be found.
I presume this is a bug, but I am using Word 2003 SP2 and cannot find any
information about this. Are there workarounds? Can bookmarks be locked
without preventing field result updating? I have now turned off 'update
fields' and 'update links' from the printing options, but I don't know if
this will solve the problem, and there certainly should be a better solution.
Thanks for any assistance or ideas.

I can confirm that this bug is still present in Word 2010 (the newest version I've tested). I have a REF field with the code:

REF _Ref414440240 \w \h \* MERGEFORMAT

This is a custom bookmark.

If I go to Print..., the result of the field can be seen to have changed in the Print Preview window from "II.4.3" (a section number in the document) to "0".

After this, from the Immediate window I can show that the field code has not changed and the bookmark that it points to is still in place. Updating the field from the Immediate window (it's in a footnote so can't be updated from the context menu) has no effect.

Setting "Update fields before printing" to either ON or OFF has no effect. Locking the fields in the document from the Immediate window also had no effect.

My solution to my client was to Save as Adobe PDF from Word (which doesn't mangle the fields) and then print the PDF.

Looks like this bug has been ignored for at least 12 years now
 
Last edited:

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