Word 2007 - Linked Object formatting

[ponder]

I teach an undergraduate finance class and am looking for a way to use Word
2007 to generate exam questions with all of the variables in the questions
linked to an Excel 2007 spreadsheet where I have calculated random variables
for the Word 2007 questions.

I understand how to generate the variables in Excel and how to link objects
to a Word document. But I do not understand how to make the final Word
document look seamless.

For instance, both the Excel spreadsheet and the Word document have the same
font, font style, and font size but the link inserted into the Word document
has a light blue border around it, the number value in the link doesn't line
up horizontally with the text in the Word document, the spacing is off, etc.
Bottom line, it looks like a cheap junk mail letter with the receipient's
name obviously inserted throughout.

Is there a way to do this seamlessly using linked objects or by any other
process?

 

[ponder]

Just posting my question gave me some more ideas about searching for the
solution to my problem. I came up with a post about field code switches,
changed mine from /a /p to /a /r and the problem was solved. The linked
object still retains the source formatting, but that's no problem since I
control the source formatting and can make it the same as the destination
formatting.

But this raises two questions:

1. where can I find more information about these field code switches? For
instance, maybe I'm just misunderstanding what I've read but I haven't found
anything about /a /p or /r switches in the Word Help discussion of
Capitalization formats, Number formats, or Character formats.

2. can I force the linked object to the destination formatting? I already
have all of the Advanced / Cut, copy, paste options set to Match Destination
Formatting but that doesn't seem to do it.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

A good place to start is the Word 2003 online Help for the approprate
field, e.g.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051861701033.aspx?pid=CH061047271033

These are "field-specific switches rather than "general" ones, so you
have to find the documentation for the specific field type. For some
reason, Microsoft's online documentation for Word 2007 leaves out the
LINK field. Their documentation for fields has long been pretty useless
- I can only assume it is because they now differenatiate between "can't
avoid" fields such as { PAGE } and other fields which, well, only people
who've learned to write might think of using )

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Visit Londinium at http://www.ralphwatson.tv