standard text by reference

[Dick Watson]

I've got a series of documents that use things like document title and
document revision and document number in multiple places within the document
(title page, cover, introduction, headers, footers, etc.) To get all of the
text in one place for maintenance, I've been adding them as hidden text and
bookmarking the characters I want with names (DocTitle, etc) on the first
page. Then I { REF DocTitle } them where I need to use them.

Is there a better, or best practices, way to accomplish the same objective?
Custom document properties inserted by { DocProperty DocTitle }? What I'm
looking for is the equivalent of "AutoText by reference" so that updating
the text definition modifies all places it's been used in the document.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Greg Maxey]

Dick,

The problem with Bookmarks is that they are easily deleted. I think that I
would use built in and custom document properties. For example Title.
Click File>Properties and enter the Document title. In the document simply
use the field { Title }. That is all you need.

For a custom property you will need to set it up in the Properties dialog
and then you { DocProperty "Your Custome Name"} with the "" marks.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I've got a series of documents that use things like document title and
document revision and document number in multiple places within the document
(title page, cover, introduction, headers, footers, etc.) To get all of the
text in one place for maintenance, I've been adding them as hidden text and
bookmarking the characters I want with names (DocTitle, etc) on the first
page. Then I { REF DocTitle } them where I need to use them.

Is there a better, or best practices, way to accomplish the same objective?
Custom document properties inserted by { DocProperty DocTitle }? What I'm
looking for is the equivalent of "AutoText by reference" so that updating
the text definition modifies all places it's been used in the document.

Thanks in advance!

Yes, document properties (both the standard ones and ones you create
on the Custom tab of the dialog) and DocProperty fields are the best
practice. If you use the Insert > Field dialog to put the fields in,
it has a list of all the properties (including any custom ones) to
choose from. Note that the name of the title property is "Title", not
"DocTitle".

To make it easier to remember to fill in the values, you can go to
Tools > Options > Save and check "Prompt for document properties".

 

[Dick Watson]

Thanks to both of you for rapid response. Properties is what I was thinking
was probably the best answer. I'd probably still use a custom one
(DocTitle), even if a standard one (Title) is defined. If I use a custom
one, I get complete control and some degree of cloaking from people who know
a little bit about playing with properties. The problem with all of the cool
features like this is that 1% of Word users know anything about them, so
they are very fragile if others ever maintain the documents.

 

[TF]

Wow, as high as 1%?

Terry Farrell

message : Thanks to both of you for rapid response. Properties is what I was
thinking
: was probably the best answer. I'd probably still use a custom one
: (DocTitle), even if a standard one (Title) is defined. If I use a custom
: one, I get complete control and some degree of cloaking from people who
know
: a little bit about playing with properties. The problem with all of the
cool
: features like this is that 1% of Word users know anything about them, so
: they are very fragile if others ever maintain the documents.
: