heading highlighting not appearing in TOC

[cayce]

When saving/closing/then reopening a Word 2007 file, the heading highlighting
that was pulled into the updated TOC before closing the file no longer
appears when the file reopens. Is there a way to force the newly opened file
to display the highlighting in the TOC without requiring the user to choose
to update the TOC?

We want the TOC to be a quick visual alert to users where they need to make
changes within the document.

Ideas to accomplish this would be welcome.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Whether or not a field is shaded depends on the "Field shading" setting:
Always, Never, or When selected. In Word 2007, find this setting at Office
Button | Word Options | Advanced: Show document content. The setting on your
machine, however, will have no effect on the setting on others' machines.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[cayce]

Suzanne:

I might not have been clear. I am speaking of applying yellow highlighting
to the words in a heading. Then, when the TOC is updated, those same words
are yellow highlighted in the TOC. (I already have field shading turned on to
always.)

What is happening is that when the file is later reopened, the TOC no
longer displays the yellow highlighting. Any way to make the TOC retain this
would be most helpful.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The TOC should reflect any direct font formatting in the headings, but it
may be that highlighting is not considered font formatting (it's not applied
from the Font dialog). If, instead of highlighting, you applied shading to
the text, I think that might work. Use Format | Borders and Shading. On the
shading tab, choose some shade of yellow and make sure "Apply to" is set to
"Selected text." You can also define a character style that applies the
desired shading color. See also http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Highlighter.htm.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[cayce]

OK Suzanne. Applying highlighting seems to be a bit of a special case. I have
noticed too that after I have highlightied something, then use the F4 repeat
last commmand, it does not repeat.

Thanks for the suggestions. Bottom line, the engineers here will likely find
turning off the borders/shading steps more than they want to deal with. I'm
sticking with highlighting.

thanks again.

 

[Lene Fredborg]

It is true that highlighting is something special and you cannot remove it
with Ctrl+Spacebar or Ctrl+Q that can be used to clear direct font and
paragraph formatting.

However, I can highlight text in headings, create a TOC in which the
highlight is reflected, save and close the document - and the highlight is
still there when reopening. This is true in both Word 2003 (English version)
and Word 2007 (Danish version). In templates, I have used highlight in
headings included in TOCs many times and I have never experienced the problem
with disappearing highlight.

Have you seen/tested the behavior in other documents too?

Do the users have any macros installed? There could be something in a macro
stripping the TOC for highlight when a document opens (e.g. an AutoOpen
macro).

There is an option that can be used to turn off the display of highlight
(Office button > Word Options > Display category > Show highlighter marks)
but since the highlight is only missing in the TOC and not the in headings
and since you can bring it back simply by updating the TOC, that option
cannot be the culprit.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word