Fields vs Bookmarks

[Rob]

Hi all,

I am using a user form to gather information about a document such as Book
Name, Chapter No, Revision No, Change No etc.

At present I am using custom document properties to save this information
and then referencing this information by using fields. This information is
then displayed in the header of the reference manual.

I suppose this is more of a concept picture, but should I be using
bookmarks instead of fields for this. I want to use the chapter number in
an outline numbering sequence later (I am still researching and
experimenting with the SEQ field).

Any suggestions, advice or help would be appreciated,

Cheers
Rob

 

[Jezebel]

Fields are much the better way to go. Amongst other benefits --

- They are easier to work with from code. It's much easier to perform
arithmetic, date, and logical operations on a field value than on a
bookmark'd range.

- You can change and update field values without your code having to touch
the content of the document itself. Replacing the content of a bookmark
results in deleting the bookmark, which you then need to redefine.

- Editing a document can send your bookmarks haywire (user does a
cut-and-paste that inadvertently redefines the bookmark range; your code
then replaces the bookmark range with a new value...)

- You can insert the same field repeatedly in the document. With bookmarks
you need to use a bookmark in one place and REF fields elsewhere.

- You can use exactly the same code for managing the properties of other
Office documents (eg Excel, PowerPoint); and some non-MS applications also
support them (at least some Corel products).

- They are accessible from outside the document. (There's a freebie utility
from Microsoft that can read and write document properties without opening
the document itself).