Smart Printing and Updating with Word Field Codes They're Not Just for Mail Merge Anymore Helen Bradley
Thu 1/17/02 -- If you merged the variables of an Excel spreadsheet with the fields of an Access database, you'd get something like Microsoft Word's field codes. Field codes are most often used for mail merge, but their utility isn't restricted to form letters: Most can be used in any Word document to create anything from automatically numbered tickets to fancy printing effects. Here's a selection of handy field codes and some ideas for putting them to work.
Accessing document properties: Each Word document has a number of properties associated with it (visible under File/Properties, or when you save a document if you've clicked Tools/Options, the Save tab, and "Prompt for document properties"). You can add these items to your documents using their field codes. Some of the properties you might want to insert include Author, Title, Number of pages, and Number of words. To add one to your document, choose Insert/Field; from the Categories list, choose Document Information; and from the "Field names" list, pick the field to use.
Get a date: You probably already know that Alt-Shift-D is a keyboard shortcut to insert the current date as a field which will update when the date changes. To change the format used, choose Insert/Date and Time, pick the format to use, and click Default to make it the default date option. Next time you press Alt-Shift-D, you'll insert a date field formatted this way.
You can insert a date field with a custom format by choosing Insert/Field. From the Categories list, choose Date and Time, and then choose Date. Pick a date format similar to what you want, then edit the code to your preferred layout. In Word 2000 and earlier, you must click Options/General Switches to add a format before altering it.
Other dates you can use include CreateDate, which displays the date the document was first created, and EditTime, which displays the total time you've spent editing it. PrintDate displays the date and time the document was last printed, while SaveDate reveals when it was last saved to disk.
Cracking the codes: You'll find it easier to create and manage field codes if you know a few keyboard shortcuts -- specifically, how to use the F9 key.
Alt-F9 toggles field code display on and off, letting you switch between seeing the actual codes and their results. To see a single field code, click it and press Shift-F9 to toggle its display on and off. To update a field, select it and press F9.
To insert a set of field code brackets into a document, you must press Control-F9 -- not the curly braces on the keyboard, although that's what field code holders look like. To see field codes more clearly, choose Tools/Options, the View tab, and from the "Field shading" drop-down list, choose Always. Field codes will then show as gray highlights on screen, but not on your printouts.
Printing effects: Using field codes, you can create neat printing effects, such as a footer which displays the date and time the document was printed -- on the last page only (see screen shot below). To do this, add this code to the footer, using Control-F9 to insert each pair of braces:
The IF code compares the current page number with the total number of pages; if they're the same (i.e., if this is the last page), the text is printed, otherwise an empty string (indicated by "") is sent to the printer.
You can adapt this code to print anything you like on the last page of the document, or use {IF {PAGE} = 1 "Start reading"} to print on the first page. The field {IF {=MOD({PAGE} , 2) } = 0 "Now we're even"} will print only on even pages, and {IF {=MOD({PAGE} , 2 )} = 1 "This is odd"} will print on odd pages.
If you encounter an error writing your field codes, check the spacing you've used. Generally, spaces don't appear immediately inside brackets, but they should appear elsewhere. You'll find Word is very unforgiving if you don't type your codes exactly the way the program expects them to appear.
Over and above: To add characters such as a caret, overline, tilde, or diaeresis over another character, use the EQ (equation) field code. For example, to add a small tilde over the letter s, choose Insert/Field, Equations and Formulas, and select the EQ field code. (If you're using Word 2002, click the "Field codes" button.) After the word EQ in the code box, type
\o(s,˜)
To enter the small tilde, hold the Alt key and type 0152 on your PC's numeric keypad instead of pressing the tilde on your keyboard. When you click OK, the composed character will appear in the document. For other combinations, replace the letter s with any other letter and the tilde with, say, the caret, an overline (Alt-0175), or a diaeresis (Alt-0168).
Tickets, please: Sequential numbering is great for creating automatically numbered page elements -- for example, numbering table cells for tickets. To start the sequence, choose Insert/Field, the Numbering category, then SEQ (if you're using Word 2002, click "Field Codes"). After SEQ, type a name for your numbering system (e.g. TicketNumber), then \r and the starting number. For instance, to start at 500, the field should read SEQ TicketNumber \r 500.
For each following number, choose Insert/Field, SEQ, and type TicketNumber. To duplicate the previous number (useful for creating duplicate tickets), choose Insert/Field, SEQ, and type TicketNumber \c.
Quick and easy codes: To make it simple to add a field code to a document, create it as an AutoText entry (Tools/AutoCorrect, then the AutoText tab). Then you can enter it at any time by typing the AutoText name and pressing F3.
