atw: Re: Is MS Word really this bad?

Automatic updates of fields placed on footers doesn't happen. However,
use Alt, V, N (which opens the document in "Normal" view), Press Ctrl +
A (selecting the entire document and press F9. This will update every
field in the document, even those in footers not linked. 
 
Welcome to the real world Geoffrey. FrameMaker is mostly a dream for the
majority of us on this list. Forget your hair - vanity doesn't come into
when you are working with Word. Think survival.
 
Regards,

Warren 


 

________________________________

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Geoffrey
Marnell
Sent: Sunday, 31 May 2009 20:15
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Is MS Word really this bad?


Hi austechies,
 
Perhaps I've been living on that holiday island called Adobe FrameMaker
for too long, and expect MS Word to be similarly intuitive and smart. Or
maybe I'm just a fool for thinking so. But I've gone bald today trying
to do this:

*       get a string of characters in various footers to automatically
reflect text a user enters into a text box on the first page of the
document.

Simple in FrameMaker. But in MS Word? 
 
If I assign a bookmark to the text in the text box, there is no
automatic updating. I have to go to each footer (each footer in each
section) and manually update the cross-reference. Even so, If the user
completely changes the text in the text box-which I expect they will do
often-the bookmark vanishes and no form of updating inserts the new text
in any footer. The result is an error message. The same occurs if I
cross-reference a heading rather than a bookmark. Completely change the
text of the heading, and bingo: every cross-reference to it converts to
an error message on updating.
 
In FrameMaker you can cross-reference any paragraph tag-not just the
eight reference types MS Word gives you-and if the entire text so tagged
changes, each cross-reference to it also changes-automatically-and
regardless of whether it is in the body of the document or in a footer
or header. Simple, intuitive, what anyone might expect. 
 
Do I really need to master VBA to use MS Word and keep my hair?
 
BTW: I'm using MS Word 2003.
 
 
Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: www.abelard.com.au <http://www.abelard.com.au/>

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