BIZARRE & BAFFLING

[William]

A couple of days ago I created two word files. Both of these contained
roughly 10 autoshapes that had text in them. The autoshapes were connected
by arrows, also selected from the drawing toolbar. I printed the documents
and they looked fine. I saved them, and reopened them this morning, and ALL
of the autoshapes, arrows, and text are gone, and at the top of the page of
both documents is this:

{ SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT }

I have no idea what happened to my documents or why, or the significance of
the above. Does anyone know what has happened?! Of course, I'd like to get
my documents back in the state in which I thought I saved them!!

 

[William]

Here is what I'm sure is a big hint. A coworker suggested I look at the
document in print preview, and sure enough, there was my document looking
exactly like it looked when I left it. However, when I return to any other
view, I can still only see the mysterious code noted in the first posting.

 

[William]

One more hint. If I delete the { SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT } at the top of the
page and then look at the document in print preview, there appears to be
nothing there. In other words, deleting that code appears to delete all the
data on the page that I can see in print preview but not any other view.

William

 

[Jay Freedman]

A couple of days ago I created two word files. Both of these
contained roughly 10 autoshapes that had text in them. The
autoshapes were connected by arrows, also selected from the drawing
toolbar. I printed the documents and they looked fine. I saved
them, and reopened them this morning, and ALL of the autoshapes,
arrows, and text are gone, and at the top of the page of both
documents is this:

{ SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT }

I have no idea what happened to my documents or why, or the
significance of the above. Does anyone know what has happened?! Of
course, I'd like to get my documents back in the state in which I
thought I saved them!!

You are viewing field codes instead of field results. The shortcut Alt+F9
toggles between them, or you can go to the Tools > Options > View dialog and
check/uncheck the Field Codes option.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Idaho Word Man]

Hit Alt-F9.

The text in brackets indicates the field code that generates the autoshape.
Alt-F9 toggles between displaying the field code and the autoshape that code
generates.

I hope this helps.

Fred