I have a query that pulls information I need to use in a mail merge document to email to people for verification of information. There are 8 fields they need to verify, preferably with a check box control, but some of the fields contain no information. I would like to make the check box next to merge fields that contain no data (or whatever I may need to write into the query to make this work) invisible. If this could be accomplished easier in a completely different way, that would be fine too. Thank you.
As Cindy said, this kind of thing is handled via field coding in the mailmerge main document, not via VB code. Such a field might be coded as:
{IF{MERGEFIELD myCheck}<> "" "[ ]"}
or:
{IF«myCheck»<> "" "[ ]"}
where 'myCheck' is the field name and '[ ]' is the checkbox content control.
Note: The field brace pairs (i.e. '{ }') for the above examples are all created in the document itself, via Ctrl-F9 (Cmd-F9 on a Mac or, if you’re using a laptop, you might need to use Ctrl-Fn-F9); you can't simply type them or copy & paste them from this message. Nor is it practical to add them via any of the standard Word dialogues. Likewise, the chevrons (i.e. '« »') are part of the actual mergefields - which you can insert from the 'Insert Merge Field' dropdown (i.e. you can't type or copy & paste them from this message, either). The spaces represented in the field constructions are all required.
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I'm having to convert some documents which had been built in OpenOffice over to word, and one thing which seems overly complicated in Word is conditional text. OO had some features which made this a breeze, but I'm thinking I'm missing something in Word.
For more simple pieces of text I've used the {IF {DOCVARIABLE xxxx} = ...} method which seems to work well with single lines of text.
For longer blocks of text I've tried using a similar method but inserting an Autotext block. This works well if the content is static, but if the content I'm inserting needs to be edited, updating the document ends up replacing any changes with the Autotext block. So this method won't work for parts of my document.
Most of the search results I'm seeing use some variation of the two methods above. Is there something else I can use which allows blocks of text, possibly including tables, to be conditionally inserted or hidden and also editable?
Macros are okay since this is how I'm setting various DOCVARIABLE parameters in the document.
I'm using Word 2016 on Windows 7.
After doing more experimenting, it looks like I can use bookmarks to do what I need.
I can select the block of text I want to conditionally show/hide, then create a bookmark for the selection.
Then in my macro I can hide the section when necessary with:
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("MyBookmarkName").Range.Font.Hidden = True
or show it again using False instead of True. This seems to hide tables and other things within that block of text. I'd love it if the Word developers would add some of the features for this type of thing which are in OpenOffice.
I've found a question in stackoverflow: "How can I build Word fields with VBA" by JonnyGold.
I'm interested in the same question, but possibly on other reasons. The answers to JonnyGold question doesn't satisfy me. I'm still in MS-word 2003. My problem is to construct a custom word field, which would recognize a bookmark name around cursor location, saves that name in some custom variable/property, so that in a case of need a hyperlink of ref field could return a cursor to the said bookmark.
I need that mechanism to facilitate an easy work with a list of bibliographic sources, so that a user can by one click to go from a reference to a source and then to return back. Note that one source could be referenced in several different places and a user should be able to return to a reference, he/she clicked before.
I tried to use REF field with MACROBUTTON field inside, but MACROBUTTON requires double or one click on a button/text, which I want to avoid. I would like to create a field {RUNMACRO MacroName}, which would run a specified VDA Macro.
I have a Microsoft Office 2013 Word template, in which I have some text-field elements, created by using Quick Parts -> Field -> MACROBUTTON noname [Type your text here].
If I fill only some of these fields (i.e. "[Name]", "[Address]") and I print or save as PDF, all the fields that I have not filled will display as [Insert your text here] in the printed paper or PDF. To be clear, the placeholder text must be manually removed (or replaced with the text you want).
I've readed somewhere, that you can create a macro, which will not display the placeholder text in the PFD- or printed version of the document, if there is no text written manually to that specific field (you leave it as it was). As this would be handy in cases, where you don't fill all the neccessery fields, my question is:
Q: Can this be achieved only by using Macro Button, and if not, what is needed to create text fields as described below that are not included in the printed or PDF saved version of the document?
This cannot be achieved without using actual macro code. Right now your solution contains no macro code, the fields simply function as "targets" and when the user types on the field it is deleted. Where the user does not type, the prompt remains. You'd need code to delete these fields from the document.
Given your requirement, the code would have to fire in the DocumentBeforeSave and the DocumentBeforePrint events. These events require a class and supporting code in a standard module. The basic information on how to set these up is in the Word object model language reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff821218.aspx
An alternative to MacroButton fields would be to use ContentControls. But here, again, code and the same events would be required to remove/hide placeholder text.
I am fairly new to VBA (Word 2010) and I'm unsure if something I'd like to do is even possible in the way that I want to do it, or if I need to investigate completely different avenues. I want to be able to print ranges (or items) that are not currently enumerated as part of either wdPrintOutRange or wdPrintOutItem. Is it possible to define a member of a wd enumeration?
As an example, I'd like to be able to print comments by a particular user. wdPrintComments is a member of the wdPrintOutItem enumeration, but, I only want comments that have an Initial value of JQC. Can I define a wdPrintCommentsJQC constant? My code is reasonably simple; I have a userform that lets the user pick some settings (comments by user, endnotes only, etc.) and a Run button whose Click event should generate a PrintOut method with the proper attributes. Am I on the wrong track?
(If it matters, the Initial values will be known to me as I write the code. I have a discrete list.)
No, it's not possible to add a constant to a predefined enumeration type.
However, one possible way to do this would be to build a string of page numbers which contain the items you wish to print, open the print dialog in the "dialogs" collection, and set it to print a specified range, andinsert the string containing the list of pages (separate them with commas). Finally, execute the .show method of the print dialog to show it to the user and give them the opportunity to set any other items and click the "ok" button. I've done something very similar when I needed to print a specific chapter of a long document, and so I had to specify the "from" section and page and the "to" section and page for the user. Below I just show how to specify a list of pages instead of the ".form" and "to" I was using:
With Dialogs(wdDialogFilePrint)
.Range = wdPrintRangeOfPages
.Pages = "3,5,7-11"
.show
end with
I'm not sure how you want to print the comments (or other elements), but you could create another document and insert what you want to print on this document.
According to what you want, you could insert them as they were (comments, footnotes, etc) or as plain text, or any other format.
I'd like to be able to create a page element which I can feed text and it will form itself into the preferred layout. For instance:
{MACRO DocumentIntro("Introduction to Business Studies", "FP015", "Teachers' Guide")}
with that as a field, the output should be a line, the first two strings a certain size and font, centred, another line and then the third string fonted, sized and centred.
I know that's sort of TeX-like and perhaps beyond the scope of VBA, but if anyone's got any idea how it might be possible, please tell!
EDIT:
Ok, if I put the required information into Keyword, as part of the document properties, with some kind of unique separator, then that gets that info in, and the info will be unique to each document. Next one puts a bookmark where the stuff is going to be displayed. Then one creates an AutoOpen macro that goes to that bookmark, pulls the relevants out of the keywords, and forms the text appropriately into the bookmark's .Selection.
Is that feasible?
You're certainly on the right track here for a coding solution. However, there is a simpler way with no code - this is the type of scenario that Content Controls in Word 2007 were built for and with Fields/Properties, you can bind to content controls (CC). These CC can hold styles (like centered, bold, etc.). No VBA required.
The very easiest thing to do is to pick 3 built-in document properties that you will always want these to be. For example, "Title" could be your first string, "Subject" your second string and "Keywords" your third. Then, just go to the Insert ribbon, Quick Parts, Document Properties and insert, place and format those how you like. Then go to Word's start button (the orb thingy) and then under Prepare choose Properties. Here you can type, for example "Introduction to Business Studies", into the Title box and then just deselect it somehow (like click in another box). The Content Control for Title will be filled in automatically with your text.
If you want to use this for multiple files, just create this file as a .dotx (after CC insertion/placement/formatting and before updating the Document Properties' text). Then every time all you'll have to do is set these three properties with each new file.
Well, yes, it did turn out to be feasible.
Sub autoopen()
Dim sKeywords As String
sKeywords = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties(4)
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("foo").Select
Selection.Text = sKeywords
End Sub
Okay, I have some filling out to do, but at least the guts of it are there.