Field codes: MergeField field RTF format problem

[Amdious]

Hello,
I'm trying to figure out why something changed from Word 97 to Word 2003.
I'm inserting a basic MergeField into a Word .doc file contained within a
formatted line.

ie.
Why does MergeField «TEST» Kill the tab in WordPad

I have a left indent before the "Why" so I get a \li720 for the format of
"Why does..." and when I insert the «TEST» mergefield in appends a \sectd to
the end of the field keyword section that terminates the formatting and if I
open the file in WordPad the left indent is removed.

ie.

Why does MergeField «TEST» Kill the tab in WordPad


It's simple enough to reproduce by creating a new file, move the left indent
margin to the right, write some words, insert the MergeField write more
words, then save the file as RTF. Open the file in WordPad and the \liN will
not be recognized. I tried the same thing in Word 97 and the \sectd is NOT
applied to the end of the MergeField. I believe Office 2000 will not apply
the \sectd either. The file looks fine in Word, but not in WordPad. I'm
guessing the \sectd was applied on purpose, but I need to know why and how to
have it removed such that I can retain the line formatting.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Just a couiple of guesses. Word 2003 could be trying to cope with the
possibility that some fields (particularly INCLUDETEXT and AUTOTEXT) might
insert a section break and the \sectd is there to try to re-impose the
section formatting that existed prior to the field. Or it may be something
to do with the possibility that a MERGEFIELD might insert RTL text into an
otherwise LTR paragraph (or vice versa).

I have to say I've only looked at the RTF encoding to try to understand or
solve very specific problems so do not have good instincts as to why you
might need a \sectd.

 

[Amdious]

Thanks. That'll give me something to investigate for figuring out the "Why"
part of the problem. Any ideas on how to turn it off and get it to behave
like the prior versions of Word?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

No, sorry. If I had to do it, I suppose I would try to work out some way to
discard the entire \sectd, but I suspect that's not at all trivial. None of
the obvious things (changing compatibility options for the document before
saving, for example) seems to make any difference.

 

[Amdious]

Yeah, I figured it was going to be a fun problem. I'm going to contact
Microsoft and try to get an explanation for the change from Word 2000. I'm
working on an application that prints RTF files using the riched20.dll and I
have complaints that it doesn't print the same as Word 2003. It seems that
Word 2003 has special logic to detect this change which I'd rather not have
to implement. I'm trying to get an explanation or configuration change for
Word 2003 rather than implement a heuristic to remove the \sectd directly
after the \field RTF block before sending the RTF to the printer. I really
don't want to take that route, since it seems a little hackarific.

Thanks for the help though! I'm glad to know it wasn't something simple that
I had overlooked! I'll post a solution if I do get one. Otherwise assume I
did the heuristic. Haha.