entire contents of doc now included in a field?

[Beth Obenshain]

In a Word document, I was creating a caption (Alt + i n c) and maybe I hit an
incorrect key. Word froze for a few minutes, and then scrolled to the first
page of the document, and in print layout I could not scroll or use document
map to get below the TOC which is on the second page of the document. Some of
the section breaks had become protected, and I was able to turn that off with
the forms toolbar. I am able to see all the text by using normal and reading
layout views. The entire contents of the doc is highlighted in gray as though
it's one big field. When I select text, it makes me select the entire
document. When I do shift + F9, the entire contents disappears and all I see
is { FORMTEXT }. Can I get my doc back?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Put your cursor anywhere in the gray highlighted area and press
Ctrl+Shift+F9 (that's the "Unlink field" command). That should remove
the field and leave your text intact, although you may lose some
formatting.

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

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

One way would be to select the field and press Ctrl+Shift+F9, which would
unlink it and convert it to plain text, but if it includes other fields,
this might not be what you want. Presumably it's too late for Undo? You
should also be able to select the entire contents of the field (without the
field braces) and copy/paste it outside the field. If you can't do it all at
once, do it in two parts. Your ability to select text within the field
without selecting the field may depend on some settings in Tools | Options |
Compatibility.

 

[Beth Obenshain]

I appreciate you and Suzanne taking the time to respond. When I do as you
both advised, nothing happens. Maybe I was incorrect to assume the gray
shading meant everything is in a field. I based that assumption on the fact
that if I do Shift+F9, everything goes away except for one { FORMTEXT }. f
you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Is the document protected for forms? If so, you'd need to unprotect it
before you could unlink the field.

 

[Jay Freedman]

It sounds like your document is seriously damaged. If you send a copy to my
email address, I'll see if I can recover it.

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