How can I print field shading in Word?

[Guest]

I have a form in Word that has gray shading in the fields that users enter
information in and I need to print a blank copy to use as a display that has
those shaded areas.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Field shading is a non-printing attribute. You can either take a screen shot
and include that picture in the document you print, or manually apply
shading to the fields. (Select the shaded field area, Format - Borders and
Shading - Shading tab, and apply the fill that corresponds to Word's
non-printing field shading.)

 

[CyberTaz]

<snip>

Field shading is a non-printing attribute.

<snip>

....Which is very deceptive because the shading _does_ show up in Print
Preview if you have the Field Shading button pressed on the Forms Toolbar.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Yep. But, imagine how ticked off users would be if the shading DID print.


For the OP, here's a quick way to shade all of the fields in a document so
that the shading will print. First, create a new character style, and call
it something like FieldShade. The name isn't important. It must be a
character style, though.

Next press Alt+F9 to toggle all fields so that they display as field codes
rather than field results (i.e., { date } rather than May 4, 2007).

Now, press Ctrl+H. In Find what:, put ^d. This will match any field.

Click in Replace with:, then click the More button. Click Format - Style,
and set the style to your character shading style (e.g., FieldShade).
Replace with: should be empty, with only the Style: indicator right below
the empty Replace with: field.

Click Replace All. When you're done, press Alt+F9 to turn field results back
on.

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