Hi all,

I've read threads indicating that Word 2000 didn't have any support for
custom fields that could be manipulated under program control, with
developers urged to utilize bookmarked ranges instead. By custom
fields I mean fields whose content would be maintained solely through
VBA or an automating application, but that would still have the user
interface benefits of fields, such as the option to highlight and/or
display codes. I've looked through the field type enumerations and
haven't seen any that cry out for this sort of usage.

My question is whether this situation has changed during MS's upgrade
to Word 2002 (XP), and in fact whether my original understanding that
such custom fields don't exist is in fact true. My own books on Word
automation stop at Word 2000, though I understand a new book covering
the automation of xml features introduced after Word 2000 is due out
later this month. At this time, my interest is limited to Word 2002,
as (BON) my clients won't be supporting Word 2003 for another couple of
years...

Thanks in Advance,
D McBride

You must have misunderstood the threads, or the writers knew not of what
they wrote. Word 2000 - like W97 before it and all versions since - does
have custom fields that can be manipulated by code (and which are indeed
preferable to bookmarks for almost all programmatic purposes). You can use
CustomDocumentProperties, which can also be modified by the user through the
Custom tab on File Properties; and you can use DocVariables which can be
added and modified only through VBA.

In both cases you can display the values in the document, using DocProperty
and DocVariable fields respectively.


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Hi all,

I've read threads indicating that Word 2000 didn't have any support for
custom fields that could be manipulated under program control, with
developers urged to utilize bookmarked ranges instead. By custom
fields I mean fields whose content would be maintained solely through
VBA or an automating application, but that would still have the user
interface benefits of fields, such as the option to highlight and/or
display codes. I've looked through the field type enumerations and
haven't seen any that cry out for this sort of usage.

My question is whether this situation has changed during MS's upgrade
to Word 2002 (XP), and in fact whether my original understanding that
such custom fields don't exist is in fact true. My own books on Word
automation stop at Word 2000, though I understand a new book covering
the automation of xml features introduced after Word 2000 is due out
later this month. At this time, my interest is limited to Word 2002,
as (BON) my clients won't be supporting Word 2003 for another couple of
years...

Thanks in Advance,
D McBride