Ronald,
First, to answer your PS: Top-posting allows people who service a number of
these newsgroups to check discussions to see if their area of expertise is
involved. Scrolling down, especially if there has been little snipping
(which unfortunately is the norm), takes time. I don't get time to answer
as many as some MVPs, who handle dozens per day, and it makes a big
difference to them. All of us are volunteers, not Microsoft employees, and
we want to maximize the efficiency of the service we provide. ;-)
A useful alternative when there are several aspects to address, which I'll
use here, is to comment in-line.
I do all Word formatting with styles and have a Word template for
letters like the one I am discussing.
Misjudgement on my part, caused by not knowing this.
The inside address block in my
Word letter template is in a style called (surprise) "inside address."
Following typical letter-writing conventions, the inside address block
may have many lines, of which I am interested only in the first for
the headers of subsequent pages. The contents of the inside address
are, of course, blank in the template.
In that case, just nominate "inside address" as the style in StyleRef -- too
easy! (i.e., forget about Heading 9 -- the fact that you use purpose-built
styles means there is no advantage in using a Heading style. As I said, one
can allocate any style to StyleRef.)
.... Unless you currently have each line in the name-and-address block ending
in a soft return (Shift-Return), which I follow as a convention. In that
case the whole of the name and address would appear in the header. I'd have
a slight preference for creating a different style name (but not formatting)
for the first line and nominating the new style name as the basis for the
StyleRef field. Let's say you'd call the new style "inside address 1".
If I understand what you write, you want me to change the style of the
first line of the inside address block to Header-9
Not now, as above, though you need to distinguish between Head*ing* (as in
styles) and a header at the top of the doc.
and to configure
that style to match the rest of the inside address. OK.
Not now, as above.
And then to
set the leftmost portion of the second-and-subsequent-page header to
Header-9 style.
No, I didn't say that -- I said to insert a StyleRef field as the left-most
element (square brackets are new words added in this present post):
'With the insertion point in the header, choose Insert menu -> Field. In
the right-hand scroll box (titled "Field names"), scroll to StyleRef and
select it. Click the Options button and click the "Styles" tab and scroll to
the heading level [now it's the "inside address" or :inside address 1"] that
you chose; select it; click on the "Add to field" button -> OK -> OK.'
I then said:
'StyleRef will automatically place "Joe Blow" (the wording to which you
assigned the Heading 9 style [now it's "inside address 1", of course]) in
the header without any other specific action on your part, and all
subsequent words entered in that first line will also appear automatically
in the header of any documents based on this document.'
StyleRef displays the *content* of the first instance of the style that you
nominate. As I mentioned above, you could just leave the style of the first
("Joe Blow") line as "inside address" if you have ended it with a hard
return, but I've assumed you may be using a soft return.
OK. Now, when I begin a letter and enter the
addressee in the first line of the inside address block, what do I
have to do to get the contents of that line in the leftmost portion of
the second-and-subsequent-page headers?
Nothing.
They will be in the same
"style" as the addressee,
No, they will be in the Header [sic] style.
but the content will not be the same unless
I update the Header-9 style to include the content of the addressee
line. Is that correct?
No.
It it is, that is exactly the kind of kluge -- confusing styles (i.e.,
format and structure) with content -- that has has made me very
reluctant indeed to switch to Word.
Well, your premise is misplaced, so it isn't a "kluge" (sorry, I don't speak
your dialect and don't know what a "kluge" is, but I get the drift).
If you want more detailed notes to follow, download "Bend Word to your Will"
(URL as in previous post) and do a Find command for " Header that shows the
wording of the chapter heading". The notes there are for the same principle,
and there is more discussion.
Ronald, if you follow my post more closely this time and after that are not
delighted with what Word can do via StyleRef, post back and let me know. In
practice it is a do-it-once-and-forget-it, totally automated solution.
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 5 hours different from the US and Europe,
so my follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================
[ps. I'm curious why you and the other gurus on the Microsoft Office
newsgroups insist on top-posting? As long as I've been reading
Usenet, which goes back to 1987, bottom posting and editing included
material -- which makes posts much easier to read -- has been the norm
in every group except the Microsoft Office groups.]
Thanks for your continued attention to my query.
