Trying to link to text in Word doc

[Rogerbid]

Hi, I hope someone can help! I shall try to keep this brief and to the point!

I have a Word .doc (titled Document Register) which is a table of the controlled documents in our Quality System, and the first 2 columns of the table contain a document date and a revision issue number. Each of the documents has this date and number in the Header.

I want to use a hyperlink in the columns of the table that 'reads' the date and revision number from each document and updates itself whenever the document is revised.

I have had some measure of success by copying the relevant text from the header and pasting it using Edit - Paste Special - Paste Link but it seems to be very erratic. Sometimes it will update, others it wont!

Is there anything special I should be doing to achieve this goal?

Thanks, Roger

 

[Lilliabeth]

Each manager has a document to maintain. There is another document - a dependent document that has the info from all the managers' documents.

The person who made the dependent document did it just by copying a manager's text, going to the dependent doc and choosing Edit, Paste special and then selecting paste link, HTML format.

Then on to do the next manager's text...

Just copy, go to the other doc and do Edit, Paste special, Paste link.

 

[Rogerbid]

Hi Lilliabeth

Thanks for the quick reply - this seems easy enough and I will explore that alternative, thanks!

I am not sure if subsequent alterations to the copied doc are then shown in the 'dependant' document but I shall soon find out by trial and error!

Thanks again, Roger

 

[macropod]

Hi Roger,

Using Edit|Paste special|Paste link produces much the same result as I suggested (even to the point of creating the INCLUDETEXT field and bookmarking the source text).

What you lose is the ability to assign meaningful bookmark names - instead you get cryptic 'OLE_LINK#' names. Plus, if you're going down the 'revisions' route I outlined, you'll still have to edit the field codes in the target document.

Cheers

 

[Rogerbid]

Hi macropod,

The world has gone crazy, and my intentions of returning to the problem of 2 days ago were thwarted till a short time ago. However, I am still battling the creation of extra bookmarks. Please can you tell me if there is an obvious reason why after creating 3 bookmarks I should be having trouble creating more - there is not a limit to the number of bookmarks you can have is there?

I am blissfully unaware of anything I am doing differently to when I created the first ones, and am really stuck!

Also, a query you can no doubt help with - can you explain the function of the '\*mergeformat' switch? It seems to have no effect when I delete it, but it is inserted by default!

Thanks again, I shall have to leave it now till Monday to try again!

Bye for now, Roger

 

[macropod]

Hi Roger,

The relevant bookmark limits are:
Length of bookmark names - 40 characters
Number of bookmarks per document - 16,379

Plus, eventually:
Number of fields per document - 32,000

Somehow, I don't think having 3 bookmarks will be a problem! However, you did mention in an earlier post the use of password-protected documents. If the protection requires a password to open the document, that might cause linkage problems. If not, it should. After all, there would be little point password-protecting a document if someone could simply extract its content via document linking.

Cheers

 

[Rogerbid]

Hi macropod,

'Tis Monday morning and all's well with the world - well nearly all!

I have stumbled upon a solution for the 'Error! Bookmark not defined' message. When I create a new bookmark and this message appears, if I right-click on the field and click on Update Field then it works!!

With this early success this morning I shall see what else I can achieve over the rest of the day!

Regarding your comments re the password protection, since the bookmark is only there to grab text from the protected document I dont see that the password protection should really matter? After all, the protection is only there to prevent others from editing or changing teh document, and not to prevent anyone from reading it, yes? Anyway, it has not seemed to make too much difference.

It seems the *\MERGEFORMAT is not something I really worry about!

Thanks for everyones help here, bit by bit I am unravelling the mystery!

Best wishes, Roger

 

[Rogerbid]

Hi, Just a brief Update!

For the benefit of anyone else who may come later looking for help with Bookmarks etc, I am now able to reveal what it is I have been doing wrong to cause me so much hassle. Even after getting a fair number of bookmarks to work as planned, I still got the 'Error! Bookmark not defined.' message on many occasions. I have now realised the secret is to save the document after entering the INCLUDETEXT field and BEFORE trying to update the field. With this firmly stuck in my mind I have made quite significant progress at last.

I am now able to move on to apply the suggestion made by Macropod on the 6th December, for which I am most grateful.

Thanks to everyone again for helping me with this problem, I feel I have learnt a little more, eventually!

With best wishes, Roger