How to know whether a word is indexed without turning on hidden text in the whole doc

[Thomas Payne]

I am using Word 2002, and XP Professional.

I have a document that is over 400 pages long, 9 subdocs in a master doc. It
is heavily indexed and has many reference fields and bookmarks. Problem --
how can I quickly tell whether a particular word has already been indexed? I
do not want to turn on "view hidden text" every time I see a word that may
need to be indexed, because the whole document repaginates every time I do
this, and then has to repaginate again when I turn it off. I also do not
want to do my main editing with "view hidden text" turned on. What I want,
ideally, is to be able to select a portion of text, and view the hidden text
in the selection only (without triggering repagination of the whole doc). Is
this possible? It seems to me that earlier versions of Word could do this.
Thanks for any help.

Tom Payne

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Thomas,

I am using Word 2002, and XP Professional.

I have a document that is over 400 pages long, 9 subdocs in a master doc. It
is heavily indexed and has many reference fields and bookmarks. Problem --
how can I quickly tell whether a particular word has already been indexed? I
do not want to turn on "view hidden text" every time I see a word that may
need to be indexed, because the whole document repaginates every time I do
this, and then has to repaginate again when I turn it off. I also do not
want to do my main editing with "view hidden text" turned on. What I want,
ideally, is to be able to select a portion of text, and view the hidden text
in the selection only (without triggering repagination of the whole doc). Is
this possible? It seems to me that earlier versions of Word could do this.

I don't think any version of Word has been able to do this, although there may
have been addins (VBA macros) that could. The "simple" solution would be to
print out just the index pages, then compare the page number you're editing to
the list of entries for a word.

Here's some sample code for that macro I mentioned. It should display all the
XE fields in a selection when you run it.

Sub GetAllIndexEntriesInSelection()
Dim rng As Word.Range, fld As Word.Field

Set rng = Selection.Range
rng.TextRetrievalMode.IncludeFieldCodes = True
For Each fld In rng.Fields
If fld.Type = wdFieldIndexEntry Then _
szEntries = szEntries & Replace(fld.Code, " XE ", "") & vbCr
Next fld
MsgBox szEntries
End Sub

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Thomas,

Thomas Payne wrote:
[..]

Problem -- how can I quickly tell whether a particular word has
already been indexed? I do not want to turn on "view hidden text"
every time I see a word that may need to be indexed, because the
whole document repaginates every time I do this, and then has to
repaginate again when I turn it off.

another "workaround" would be to work in Normal view for this kind of
task. Use Page Layout view for your last pagination checks only (this
will speed up things anyway).

Plus, especially in a larger document like this, I strongly advice to do
one run through your document for each task, and not try to go
page-by-page and do all sorts of different things.

Greetinx
..bob
...Word-MVP
....and of course you have read all nightmare stories in here about
master documents, haven't you

 

[Thomas Payne]

Thanks. It didn't occur to me that working in normal view would eliminate
the repagination. That helps.

I have not read nightmare stories about master documents. I have had my
share of nightmares, but lately the master doc system has worked very well
for me. Do you recommend not using a master doc for such a large project as
this? (400 pages and growing).

Tom

Hi Thomas,

Thomas Payne wrote:
[..]

Problem -- how can I quickly tell whether a particular word has
already been indexed? I do not want to turn on "view hidden text"
every time I see a word that may need to be indexed, because the
whole document repaginates every time I do this, and then has to
repaginate again when I turn it off.

another "workaround" would be to work in Normal view for this kind of
task. Use Page Layout view for your last pagination checks only (this
will speed up things anyway).

Plus, especially in a larger document like this, I strongly advice to do
one run through your document for each task, and not try to go
page-by-page and do all sorts of different things.

Greetinx
.bob
..Word-MVP
...and of course you have read all nightmare stories in here about
master documents, haven't you
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
\ /
X Against HTML
/ \ in e-mail & news

 

[Thomas Payne]

Thank you for this. I think what I used to do in earlier versions of Word
was just select a PP, then <ctrl+space> to turn all formatting, including
hidden text, in the PP to the default. Then I could just "edit>undo" to put
the original formatting back. But <ctrl+space> in Word 2002 doesn't seem to
affect hidden text. Thanks for the tips and the macro. This is very helpful.

Tom

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Thomas,

Thomas Payne wrote:
[..]

I have not read nightmare stories about master documents. I have had
my share of nightmares, but lately the master doc system has worked
very well for me. Do you recommend not using a master doc for such a
large project as this? (400 pages and growing).

well, the "MVP-Disclaimer" concerning master documents is found here:

Why Master Documents corrupt (by John McGhie)
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm

It seems that over the years (since Word 97), Word has become somewhat
stabler and the work with MD isn't outright dangerous anymore (though
I'd say it's not "best practice", too).

FWIW, we are producing a book in two language versions, each document
1000 pages in length, one new issue every other year or so. Working with
such a document isn't really NICE, but you can live with it (and I
wouldn't touch MD with a legacy-burdened beast like these, beleive me!).

Greetinx
..bob
...Word-MVP

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Thomas,

I think what I used to do in earlier versions of Word
was just select a PP, then <ctrl+space> to turn all formatting, including
hidden text, in the PP to the default. Then I could just "edit>undo" to put
the original formatting back. But <ctrl+space> in Word 2002 doesn't seem to
affect hidden text.

Mmmm. XE fields stay formatted as "hidden", no matter what you do. So while
that might have worked for plain ol' hidden text, it shouldn't have worked
for turning index entries on/off.

Might you have been toggling the display of non-printing characters? Such as
using the backwards "P" button on the standard toolbar? There's also a
keyboard shortcut for this, but I can't remember right off-hand what it is.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Thomas,

I have not read nightmare stories about master documents. I have had my
share of nightmares, but lately the master doc system has worked very well
for me. Do you recommend not using a master doc for such a large project as
this? (400 pages and growing).

I think the general view is, use it at your own risk , and be sure to make
regular backups, especially of the sub-docs. NEVER edit the sub-docs while
they're open in the master (except necessary things like headers/footers,
X-refs) and NEVER try to change the order of the sub-docs by dragging them.

Consider the Master doc, itself, as a "throw away" file that's really only
used to pull the sub-docs together for TOCs, indexes, X-refs, page numbering
for PRINTING. (That's what is was designed for, originally, and does quite
well)

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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

 

[Thomas Payne]

Thank you again, and sorry for inadvertently sending an earlier reply by
e-mail. I'm still getting used to using forums.

So what do you do with your 1000 page document? Is it one big file? Do you
normally edit in "normal" view?

One reason I use "print layout" view is that I have a lot of images in my
text that don't show up in normal view. I want to know where those are, and
if I insert new ones, I need to know where they are going to show up.

Tom

Hi Thomas,

Thomas Payne wrote:
[..]

I have not read nightmare stories about master documents. I have had
my share of nightmares, but lately the master doc system has worked
very well for me. Do you recommend not using a master doc for such a
large project as this? (400 pages and growing).

well, the "MVP-Disclaimer" concerning master documents is found here:

Why Master Documents corrupt (by John McGhie)
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm

It seems that over the years (since Word 97), Word has become somewhat
stabler and the work with MD isn't outright dangerous anymore (though
I'd say it's not "best practice", too).

FWIW, we are producing a book in two language versions, each document
1000 pages in length, one new issue every other year or so. Working with
such a document isn't really NICE, but you can live with it (and I
wouldn't touch MD with a legacy-burdened beast like these, beleive me!).

Greetinx
.bob
..Word-MVP
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
\ /
X Against HTML
/ \ in e-mail & news

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Thomas,

Thank you again, and sorry for inadvertently sending an earlier
reply by e-mail. I'm still getting used to using forums.

you are excused. ;-)

So what do you do with your 1000 page document? Is it one big file?
Yes!


Do you normally edit in "normal" view?

Yes. We use print layout view only for pagination work. This should be
in the last possible stage only (you do a lot of work twice or multiple
times else ...).

One reason I use "print layout" view is that I have a lot of images
in my text that don't show up in normal view. I want to know where
those are, and if I insert new ones, I need to know where they are
going to show up.

There are two possible ways to arrange images in Word: "inline" or
"floating".

Inline means the image is within the text layer, Word treats it like a
possibly very large character, with all implications. This also means it
is visible in normal view.

Floating means the image "floats" above (or below) the text area, and
you are presented with a bunch of flowing options. Not visible in
normal-view.

Whenever you can, you really do want to use the former. It's rock solid
in terms of stable layout. You'll never get bugged with jumping anchors
of floating images. You cannot let the text flow around the image unless
you use invisible tables à la HTML (but if you do, you lose most
advantages of reflowing text anyway ). But it's worth the benefits IMHO
by far; of course, this makes perfectly sense for our work here as we
are dealing with images usually as large as the text area gets. Your
(and others') milage may and possibly will vary.

Greetinx
..bob
...Word-MVP

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And if you must use floating images, you can still see them in Normal view
(though not the actual text wrapping) if you put them in frames. As Bob
says, though, inline graphics are *much* easier to deal with all 'round.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
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all may benefit.

 

[Thomas Payne]

Thanks to all of you for your replies. They are very helpful.

Tom