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When it comes to field codes, we find several different camps.
First, there's the group who says, "We need more documentation, with better examples."
Then, there's who says, "You don't need to know about field codes. They are so old fashioned."
Another group says, "What are these funny bracket things and gray places in my document?"
Finally, there is apparently a very large group of people who use Word and have never knowingly encountered a field code.
Do any of these sound familiar?
Field codes provide a way to customize your Word document manually. That sounds like hard work, but the field codes also give you an inside look at some of the ways that you can customize a page number or a table of contents. (Really—those are fields.)
The results of a field code might look like this:
but if you press ALT+F9, the actual code might look like this:
The \o, \h, \z, and \u are switches that provide specific information. For example, \h specifies that the table of contents entries should be hyperlinks so that you can click the page number and go to that page in the document.
Word has a long list of field codes that you can add by clicking the Insert tab, clicking Quick Parts (in the Text group), and then clicking Field. Click the field that you want to insert, click the Field Codes button, and then click Options to see a list of all possible switches, with a description of each.
We're always plotting and planning and sifting through customer data—yes, from you—to figure out what to document next. Where do we want to put our resources? We got off to a slow start on field codes because the basic information, the switches and properties, didn't change from Word 2003 to Word 2007—and all of the Word 2003 information is online.
Plus, Word 2007 has some very nice user interface features to do the heavy lifting. That's fine until someone wants to customize a part of their document. And that's when a little knowledge of field codes can help.
Now, we've added some articles on field codes to the Word 2007 Help, and customer comments are telling us that those articles are less helpful than we want them to be. Why? Do they assume too much context? Too much knowledge of field codes and other technical things, such as switches and parameters? Or do people get to those articles by mistake, when really they want a much easier way to get the job done?
If we added more background information, would more people use field codes? Is that even a good thing?
In keeping with the spirit of inquiry, I'd like to do a really short survey:
Yes, I have a lot of questions, and your answers are appreciated. The more information we get, the better help we can provide.
-Joannie Stangeland
Comments: (23) Collapse
It would be nice to see how to put the name of the current "chapter" of a book or article in the header or footer section. For example, the last occurence of a text marked with the format "Header 2". I think this is done with field codes, but I have never been able to figure out how to do it.
Before I go further I would like to say that I am a developer of sorts. (I’m an MCPD: WinForms). By that I mean I’m comfortable with code. * I NEVER manually use field codes. Why? Word 2007 feels like a really polished app, you guys have done a terrific job to get the feel right. It's got that End-User feel. When I see field codes, I get the feeling that I'm digging where I was not intended to dig, if you know what I mean. The feel is much different. I have stumbled upon field codes somewhere because their usage always seemed so unpolished (not a pleasure to put one into the document) and fragile (I get the feeling that they break easily). Editing field codes in Word is not a thing I expect to do in word. If it was VIM, that would perfectly normal. * I have, on occasion, tried to use them. I was editing footers, and wanted to customize page numbers, so I stumbled upon them. * For me, getting the feel consistent with the rest of the beautiful app would be most helpful. A good looking editor would be great – one which would not actually show codes, but a nice categorized, sortable, filterable list of field names (with spaces and everything) with a section what shows the selected field’s description of what it does, an example of how that field would be evaluated/rendered and human-readable parameters (Not CamelHumps descriptions that are there now).
They do seem powerful, but much more polish should be applied before non-hardcore Word users like myself start to use them.
Yes, I use Word fields a lot inclusive from VBA but it would be very welcome if they can return values from VBA functions like worksheet formulas in Excel.
I've composed two Ph.D. theses and several M.Sc. theses in Word 2003 and 2007. I've used field codes in each one of them.
I am currently a law student as well as having interned in several law offices. Document formatting is extremely important in the legal field, and I find myself using field codes often. Especially for creating multiple tables of contents within one very large document, as is often required for creating statutes books and such. However, the default Word 2007 has been less than helpful, and I find myself going to user-created tutorials for the information I need.
I use field codes a lot, and I really type inside those curly brackets. My primary use of them is with seq, because the dot and numbering cannot fulfill my needs (or I haven't learnt how to use them properly). Another situation is when I need a list of dates: 21/4 (we are d/m people), 22/4, 23/4 and I always {seq}
Hi, I've no idea how best to make this comment... but I'll try posting here. I love the new equation editor in Word 2007. However, I'd like to suggest a few important improvements before it is really ready for use: (1) It's very important that the conversion between linear and professional form is one-to-one. At the moment, I've encountered many situations where I get a different equation if I convert pro->linear->pro. This also makes it quite difficult to get bracket sizes, fractions, etc right because the autocorrect facility has a bit of a "mind of its own". I'd like the "linear" format to work like a kind of "view source" option to allow tweaking of the finished equation. (2) Equation numbering. This is pretty vital! We need to be able to have (1), (2), (3), ... numbering and also (x.1), (x.2), (x.3) based on sections or chapters. (3) A full list of the LaTeX-style \... shortcuts would be very useful. Thanks for reading!
Wow! On field codes, thanks to everyone for your helpful comments. I'm especially intrigued by the chapter-title-in-the-footer concept. Feel free to keep the comments coming. Regarding the equation editor, thanks, Chris, for the feedback.
JoeH: use the STYLEREF field code. It does exactly what you want, provided you have formatted the chapter titles as the heading level to which the STYLEREF is set to refer. I use field codes all the time. However, I'm not sure adding more documentation would help. The limiting factor in the use of field codes seems to be a lack of awareness. They're tucked away, out of sight! A second problem I would add is the general age and unreliability of field codes. They're old functionality, and they often do not operate as the documentation on them suggests. A third and final problem is that field codes are static until refreshed. Somebody new to field codes may conclude that the codes are broken or give up in frustration when, e.g., his cross-reference fields no longer show the correct page number. It's a lot to ask users to press CTRL+A, F9, answer TOC/TOA prompts, and examine the document for newly broken fields (e.g., references to content that has been deleted) every time they edit a document and want to publish or print it.
Yes, I use field codes all the time. Yesterday I had to place a simple sub toc at the start of each new chapter in addition to placing a field code at the top of each page of a report showing a style ref of numbered sections appearing on that page such as 17.20.040 to 17.20.060.
I just had another thought of what would help me the most when using field codes: live suggestions, descriptions, auto-complete, and parameter specification like in Excel (or Visual Studio.) Compare the user experience inserting a field code in Word to inserting a formula in Excel. Word provides gray shading and curly braces to indicate field entry, and that is all: the user is given no guidance and no feedback on entry. Excel, on the other hand, brings up a search-as-you-type list box with valid formulas, explanations of what they do, and when a parenthesis is entered, an ordered list of arguments.) Needless to say, Excel formulas are vastly easier to use than Word field codes. Indeed, the live feedback the program gives obviates the need for users to find and peruse the kind of documentation (help files) mentioned above!
I would like to see some examples showing how to use Word fields with SharePoint fields. specifically showing how the date/time fields can be formatted
Thanks to JoeH for the advice about the STYLEREF field code. One follow-up note: Be sure that each of your chapters is in a separate section by adding section breaks--and be sure that each section is not linked to the previous section. Francis, I like the comparison to Excel. I think the dialog box provides more of that kind of assistance, but if you just want to press CTRL+F9 and start to type, you are currently on your own. Dean, for examples of using Word fields with Windows SharePoint Services fields, see the downloadable templates at www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx. (The URL isn't pretty, but the process works.) --Joannie Stangeland
Joannie, Fields are a life saver. Field codes are a mess, particularly since the same switch can have different meaning for different field types (e.g. \p for path, picture, paragraph...) We work with OLE fields all the time, speaking of which, there is a bug in the OLE interop via PasteSpecial in Word 2007 / Excel 2007. I would love to tell you more, but no one seems to be willing to listen (MSDN forums, etc.) Please shoot me a line at ibarskiy at comcast.net if you care. Sincerely, Ilya
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