Referencing comments from another document?

[Guest]

Hi everybody,
It seems like this should be possible, based on the descriptions of the
fields in the Word 2003 help, but I can't figure it out. I have certain times
I need to reference comments of specific documents from another one (like
from the properties); is there any way to do this? It would be very helpful
if anyone knew how to do this.

Thanks,
Jezzica85

 

[Guest]

Hi again everybody,
I was looking over my post again and I realized that it probably isn't that
clear, so just in case it was unclear:

Let's say a comment, Comment1, in Document1 is "Comment"
I'd like to include Comment1 in the body of a second document, Document2.

I hope that's clearer.
Thanks again!
Jezzica85

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

The only way I can think to do that in Word using a reference is to bookmark
the comment in Document1, then insert the file into document2, referring to
that bookmark using the Range reference.

You could also copy the comment to the clipboard and paste a link to it in
document2.

But, I know of no way to refer to the comment by comment number.

 

[Guest]

Thank you Herb,
Actually, the "Comment1" was only an example for cohesiveness and clarity;
is bookmarking the comment or cutting and pasting it still the only way to
reference any comment from another document?

Thanks for the reply,
Jezzica85

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Those are certainly the most direct ways. I could probably think of a dozen
other ways -- some of them quite bizarre.

Is there a reason that using a bookmark won't work for your purposes? If you
can describe what you're trying to do, and why a bookmark or pasting a link
wouldn't work, maybe I or someone else who's reading the mail here can
suggest a technique.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Guest]

Hi Herb,
What I'm actually doing is writing a book--I have chapters in separate
files, and then I put them all together with INCLUDETEXT fields in a combined
document. When I finish a new chapter, I back up the combined document on a
CD. Each chapter has in its comments field the starting and completion dates,
and I'd like to make sure I have them, and any changes to them, when I back
up the whole thing, just in case my computer ever dies. I don't think a
bookmark would work because it would get in the way of the text, and a link
wouldn't work because I need to see the numbers directly--it's one way I'm
indexing my revisions. I could in principle back up all my chapter files, but
that would be a waste of space and hard to weed through because a lot of
files would be the same.

Basically, the first page of every backup file should go like this:
Chapter 1:
Synopsis
Changes
Dates (this is where the comments would go)

Chapter 2:
etc.

Thanks for your patience,
Jezzica85

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

When I use INCLUDETEXT fields to collect files into a single file, the
comments come across just fine in the resulting file.

Are you saying that comments are being stripped out?

Or... maybe we're not talking about the same "comments." I'm talking about
the comments you insert when you're reviewing a document. Are you talking
about these, or are you talking about the Document Properties comments?

If the latter, and you're using a field to insert the comment contents,
there are several possible solutions. One solution would be to lock the
comment field against changes each time you complete a chapter and have
updated the field where you're displaying comments. Do this by selecting the
field and pressing Ctrl+3 (not Ctrl+F3) after you update with F9. If you
ever need to update it in the original file, you can unlock it with
Ctrl+Shift+3.

Alternatively, if you'll never want to update it, you can convert it to
static text (Ctrl+Shift+F9). I suspect that this would be less useful for
future work, though.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Guest]

Yes, I think you're right, we each thought the other was talking about the
same comments, but we were actually talking about different ones. I'm talking
about the Document Properties comments, not reviewing comments.

The thing with the comments field is what I would like to do--let me repeat
what you wrote to make sure that I understand. So, what you're saying is, I
could put a comments field, in, say, the footer of each of my chapter files,
so they wouldn't show up in the combined file and wouldn't interfere with the
text, but then in the file where I wanted to show the comments, I could refer
to the field like this:

REF "file" BOOKMARK

and then get the info I want. In the original documents, I'd lock the
results with Ctrl+3 to prevent them from being updated.

Is that right?

Thanks again,
Jezzica85

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Yes. That will get you what you want.

I don't know of any other way to obtain a different document's properties.

In Word 2007's .docx file format, there might be an XML way to do it, but I
don't know how. In the .docx packet, comments would be stored in core.xml.
There might be some clever way to read that content and insert it into
another file, but I'm not fully versed in xml, so I don't know how or if it
could be done.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Guest]

Thanks a lot Herb,
I feel really stupid, but for some reason that worked once, but it isn't
working now. Word tells me that it can't find the reference. Is it because I
put the comment field in the footer?

Thanks for all your patience,
Jezzica85

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

No. It should work from the footer, as well. Go back and make sure that
you've used the correct bookmark name in the range, since that's the usual
error. I bookmarked a comments property reference in a footer, and named the
bookmark "commentinfooter". Here is the INCLUDETEXT reference to it:

{ INCLUDETEXT "D:\\Users\\Herb\\Documents\\Consult\\Sample.doc"
commentinfooter }

If you're constructing the field manually, make sure that \s are doubled.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com