Odd Field behaviors in a document (Word 97 and 2000)

  • Thread starter Thread starter BJ
  • Start date Start date
B

BJ

I have a Word document with several fields. Some are to be used to
input information; others merely repeat that information in other
paragraphs. I have the fields set up so that those that merely reference
others generally have different formats than those into which a user
directly enters information. I have discovered that at around 22
characters in the fields that reference the others the formatting of the
reference field fails and the text returns to the same formatting as
appears in the original input field (so, for text that is 23 characters
long and is input at 22 pt, in the cross reference field which is set to 12
pt the 23rd character appears at 22 pts again). I can manually change
the format back to the desired cross-reference format but would prefer
not to have to do that every time. Has anyone come across this
behavior? Any suggestions?
 
Are these form fields? If so, you don't need new form fields to repeat the
information, just cross-references to the built-in bookmark of the specific
form field.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I have a Word document with several fields. Some are to be used to
input information; others merely repeat that information in other
paragraphs. I have the fields set up so that those that merely reference
others generally have different formats than those into which a user
directly enters information. I have discovered that at around 22
characters in the fields that reference the others the formatting of the
reference field fails and the text returns to the same formatting as
appears in the original input field (so, for text that is 23 characters
long and is input at 22 pt, in the cross reference field which is set to 12
pt the 23rd character appears at 22 pts again). I can manually change
the format back to the desired cross-reference format but would prefer
not to have to do that every time. Has anyone come across this
behavior? Any suggestions?
 
Not sure how this information will help you, but the formatting issue
relates to the length of the field result. Under some strange (and to me,
unpredictable) circumstances, Word maintains the formatting for the length
of the original field result (23 characters in your example) ... when you
update fields where there is character formatting, the formatting is
maintained only for the original field length, whatever the length of the
new result.

I haven't researched this in detail, but it seems to be affected by a)
whether you use MERGEFORMAT in the field, and b) whether the character
formatting is applied with field codes or field results displayed.

As Suzanne points out, it's easier to design around this sort of problem
than to solve it.




I have a Word document with several fields. Some are to be used to
input information; others merely repeat that information in other
paragraphs. I have the fields set up so that those that merely reference
others generally have different formats than those into which a user
directly enters information. I have discovered that at around 22
characters in the fields that reference the others the formatting of the
reference field fails and the text returns to the same formatting as
appears in the original input field (so, for text that is 23 characters
long and is input at 22 pt, in the cross reference field which is set to 12
pt the 23rd character appears at 22 pts again). I can manually change
the format back to the desired cross-reference format but would prefer
not to have to do that every time. Has anyone come across this
behavior? Any suggestions?
 
Not sure how this information will help you, but the formatting issue
relates to the length of the field result. Under some strange (and to me,
unpredictable) circumstances, Word maintains the formatting for the length
of the original field result (23 characters in your example) ... when you
update fields where there is character formatting, the formatting is
maintained only for the original field length, whatever the length of the
new result.

I haven't researched this in detail, but it seems to be affected by a)
whether you use MERGEFORMAT in the field, and b) whether the character
formatting is applied with field codes or field results displayed.
Click to expand...

Here's an excerpt with my understanding of the situation:

\* MERGEFORMAT is also a bit strange. When the field is updated, Word
looks at the paragraph styles, character styles, and direct formatting
that you have applied to the previous field result, and applies the
same formatting word-for-word to the new result. If you have applied
orange superscript to the third word of the old result, the third word
of the new result will be orange superscript. If you applied bold to
all seven word of the old result and the new result has eight words,
the first seven words will be bold and the eighth word will not. (Word
only looks at the first letter of each word when deciding what
formatting to preserve; it will not preserve partial-word formatting.)

The \* MERGEFORMAT switch is applied by default when you use Insert |
Field. To get rid of it, uncheck the box for "Preserve formatting
during updates". Using MERGEFORMAT is usually a bad idea; the results
are seldom what are desired.

Bob S
 
Back
Top