Cross Referencing Bookmarks

[Brian]

Hello,

I have an application (built in PowerBuilder) that does a mail merge
using Word 2003. I am using bookmarks to insert things like first
name, last name, address, etc. This works fine if I only want to merge
each bookmark once. After reading many of these posts I discovered
that what I want to do is then cross reference that bookmark any number
of times.

However, I am unable to get the bookmarks to print anytime other than
the first. I have a bookmark named fname. My original bookmark prints
fine as "Charlie". However, when I cross reference to fname and run
the merge, my second instance displays "fname". I have tried the ctrl
+ A and F9 trick and right clicked on the new reference and clicked
update, and still no luck.

Is the problem that Word cannot cross reference to a value that is
programmatically set? I have clicked tools | options | print | update
fields, but no luck.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Brian,

I have an application (built in PowerBuilder) that does a mail merge
using Word 2003. I am using bookmarks to insert things like first
name, last name, address, etc. This works fine if I only want to merge
each bookmark once. After reading many of these posts I discovered
that what I want to do is then cross reference that bookmark any number
of times.

However, I am unable to get the bookmarks to print anytime other than
the first.

Bookmarks are removed during the mail merge execution; you really can't
use them in mail merge as you propose. What you need to do is insert the
merge field as many times as you need to display it in the merge result.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Brian]

Hi Cindy,

Thanks for your reply. I guess I used the word mailmerge a bit
casually. I have an app that uses an oleobject that opens a word doc
behind the scenes and looks for specific bookmarks to update with
values. The bookmarks themselves work fine, but I am unable to cross
reference them elsewhere in the doc. Sounds like bookmarks are not the
way to go.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Brian,

I guess I used the word mailmerge a bit
casually. I have an app that uses an oleobject that opens a word doc
behind the scenes and looks for specific bookmarks to update with
values. The bookmarks themselves work fine, but I am unable to cross
reference them elsewhere in the doc. Sounds like bookmarks are not the
way to go.

Bookmarks should be fine, it's likely you're not extending them around
the text you're inserting, so there's nothing "in" them for the
cross-reference to display. Roughly, you should be doing this (VBA code):

Dim doc as Word.Document
Dim rng as Word.Range
Dim sBkmName as String

Set doc = ActiveDocument
sBkmName = "Bookmark1"
If doc.Bookmarks.Exists(sBkmName) Then
Set rng = doc.Bookmarks(sBkmName).Range
rng.Text = "some text"
doc.Bookmarks.Add Range:=rng, Name:=sBkmName
End If

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail