Thanks to everyone who replied to my post! I have settled on a combination
solution: hidden text and IncludeText fields.
Hidden Text
I plan to create the following character styles: ManualA, ManualB, and
ManualC. If I need to print A, I'll add the Hidden attribute to the B and C
character styles. Of course the same goes for printing B or C.
IncludeText Fields
Many of you have pointed out that hidden text runs amok when you hide
numbered fields such as headings or lines from a numbered list. When I must
make large blocks of text (such as chapters) conditional, I plan to use the
IncludeText fields to change which source files MS-Word pulls text from. I
got the idea from a wonderful article written Daiya Mitchell and Cindy
Meister:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm#FilePaths
Many thanks to all!
José
"Jose Valdes" wrote in message
...
I am writing three manuals that are almost identical. However, each manual
has some unique content. As a former user of Adobe FrameMaker, my rash
impulse was to use VBA to recreate the Condition Text feature in MS Word.
Here's how it works:
Info unique to manual A appears in these markup tags: ManualAContentOpen
and ManualAContentClose. Manuals B and C have similar tags. If I want to
print manual A, VBA scripts format B and C content as hidden text (Format
menu | Font | Hidden checkbox). Content for A is not hidden, but VBA
scripts hide markup tags.
I have already starting this work and feel competent enough to complete
it. I fear, however, that I might be giving into my dark impulses to play
with VBA instead of writing. ;-) I was hired to be a writer of course.
Does feature exist already somewhere? Am I on the right track?