text in index tags visible

G

Gerry Rudolf

Topic: entering an index entry field
technique:
- Ctrl+F9 creates field;
- then type in xe to turn it into an index entry field
with all text typed as hidden text;
- next comes a " to start the text of the entry;
- next, the text to be entered is pasted from the clip
board;
-next comes the closing " - however:
ERROR: The " is not rendered as hidden text, any text
entered before or after that " will also not be hidden.
There is no way to turn this text into a hidden text. This
text will show up in the printed text. Under certain
circumstances, the index field itself gets corrupted, as
one can delete the index braces individually; the field
does not get marked as such anymore. That can corrupt the
entire file, as a field has no defined end. Files can turn
unreadable this way.

Result: quotation marks all over the place, and sometimes
even text from the entry tag typed or copied before the
non-hidden ". Under certain circumstances: Corrupt files
(had to recover one once).

This error does not happen when text is written or when
the menu option Insert/Reference/Index... is used for an
entry (auto-entry or not). Only when text is pasted from
the clipboard into the tag.

Solution: ??? As long as there is non, I will cannot use
Word, as I need indexes quite often.

History: That error occurred first in Word XP and is still
there in Word 2003.

Please make somebody aware of this problem and fix it,
because Word is about to lose all those users who need the
indexing function!

Gerry
 
J

Jay Freedman

Hi, Gerry,

I've confirmed your findings in Word 2002 and 2003, and I'll pass them
along to my contact at Microsoft.

There is a workaround, if you can retrain your fingers slightly: After
you type the XE keyword in the field, type both quote marks and press
the left arrow key to put the cursor between them; then paste the
text.
 
G

Guest

I actually wrote a macro that does all things, including
the pasting, in a way that things can't go wrong. However,
I have several people working on book projects, and you
never know when somebody typs in things in a way that it
does fail. As a result, I had a few surprises where
quotation marks and allegedly hidden text showed up where
it wasn't supposed to. Therefore I stick to Word 2000 for
the time being to be on the safe side.

Thanks anyway.

Gerry
 
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