Any way to hide fields without effectively inactivating them?

[Another Dan]

Greetings!

Is there a setting that governs how Word interprets the hidden font setting
with respect to formulas in fields?

I use a bookmarked field in my document to provide a value which is used in
a calculation performed by a formula in another field, elsewhere in the
document.

I would like to hide the bookmarked item by applying the hidden font format,
but if I do this Word ceases to provide the value of that bookmark to the
calculation -- kind of like conditional text in FrameMaker. I believe that I
have used the hidden font in similar circumstances before, without having
this result.

Many thanks for your advice!...

 

[Anne Troy]

To my knowledge, Word NEVER provides a calculation on a calculated field.
So, if I want to subtract total expenses from total income, I have to add
and subtract the detailed items all in one formula.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Another Dan]

Hi! Thanks for your response.

Sorry to have been unclear -- I am using the value associated with a
bookmarked item in a calculation. It works perfectly (so I guess it doesn't
entail the sort of operation you mention).

The difficulty arises when I apply the hidden font to the bookmarked item:
Word also hides the value from the calculation (though the value is
unchanged).

I have used the hidden font before, without producing this unwanted effect,
leading me to wonder if there is a Word setting somewhere which governs how
hidden text is processed.

Thanks again.

* * * * * *

 

[Anne Troy]

Not sure, Dan. Did you consider using white font?
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Doug Robbins]

A possible work around is to format the paragraph with a negative indent and
a tab stop at the left margin and have the bookmark at the position of the
indent so that it is located in the unprintable area.

If the value is in a hidden bookmark, (which is not vey accessible) why not
just use a constant in the calculation. Tell us more about the whole deal
and we may be able to suggest other ways of doing it.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Another Dan]

Anne, Doug,

Thank you both for your helpful replies.

I had hoped there was a checkbox to click somewhere that would allow me to
use hidden text, and spare you the boring details. I am sure you will have a
more elegant solution for this simple problem than the one I came up with.

I am working with a template which has several sections in the front matter,
numbered continuously with roman numerals. The body of the document has
"Page x of x" arabic numbering which restarts at page one. Therein lies the
rub, since the total number of pages needs to exclude the front matter.

A fairly straighforward solution was to place a {PAGE} field alongside of a
stable feature of the last page of the front matter, bookmark it (lets call
it frontpages), and then use the bookmark in a simple formula to get the
desired total :
{ = {NUMPAGES } - frontpages }.

This works perfectly well, but hiding the bookmarked field is apparently not
an option. I'd swear I have previously used hidden text without this problem,
which is why I was looking for help in that direction.

As it happens, the spot deemed least likely to be disturbed by users of the
template where the bookmark could be secreted is in a heading. I had tried
using white text, which is fairly unobtrusive on the page, but is
unacceptably visible in the TOC...

Looking forward, with much appreciation, to your thoughts on the matter.

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I assume that you've reviewed
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/PageNumbering.htm and
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NumberingFrontMatter.htm.

The following calculation field may work. It assumes that the body of your
text is numbered continuously and requires no hidden bookmarks. It
calculates the number of pages in the front matter and then subtracts that
number from the NumPages field.

Page { Page } of { = { NumPages } - { = { NumPages } - { Page } } }

--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Oops! The last Page field needs to be a page reference to a bookmark on the
last page.
Page { Page } of { = { NumPages } - { = { NumPages } -{ PAGEREF
LastPage } } }

LastPage is anything that is bookmarked on the last page. In this case, I
typed "The end." at the end and bookmarked it.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I just tried this with the bookmarked text hidden, and it works fine. The
name of my bookmark is LastPage, this isn't anything built into Word.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Another Dan]

Charles,

Thank you for kindly taking the time on this.

Following your lead, I used a PAGEREF to get the value needed in the formula
I was using. Since a simple bookmark was all that was needed on the last
page of the front matter, there was nothing left to hide.

(As it happens, there is an unvarying item on the last page of the front
matter which should be a reliable anchor for the bookmark; sounds easier than
getting my users to look after one at the end of the document.)

Thanks again to all who responded!

 

[macropod]

Hi Dan,

What you are after is quite easy to achieve - simply create a bookmark with
nothing selected at the end of your 'frontpages' or, if your 'frontpages'
material is in a separate section, use a SET field to create your
'frontpages' bookmark:
{SET frontpages {SECTIONPAGES}}
and press F9 to update. Other than the bookmark bar, which is only visible
on-screen, there's nothing that needs to be hidden. Then you can use:
{ = {NUMPAGES } - {PAGEREF frontpages} }
for your page numbering.

Cheers