New Fields Possible ?

[Tim Dexter]

Hi All

Does anyone know if we can create a new field type in Word
and then define our own field properties and field options
for it?

Thanks

Tim

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Hi Tim,

No, it's not possible. Post back with information on just what you want the
field to be/do and we might be able to suggest other ways.

Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Tim Dexter]

Hi

We want to store properties with the field such as a
reference to an XML element. So the user would
see, 'Customer' but the field would store CUSTOMER_NAME
which would be the reference to the xml element.

Any thoughts ?

Regards

Tim

 

[Peter Jamieson]

One possibility: it may be worth looking at what existing field types allow.

For example, if you have

{ set customer "Spender,B" }
{ ref customer }

the user sees

Hey, big spender!

but you can also insert

{ ref customer action="bought everything" }

and you'll still see the same result. But maybe there are limitation on the
characters allowed in the text after the ref name, the overall field length,
and so on. And of course this approach could easily be undermined. Depending
on what you are attempting, maybe you could implement something along the
lines of

{ ref customer action=myaction }

and insert a Word document variable (or perhaps document property) called
"myaction", IYSWIM. Also easily undermined, but everything is still
contained within the same .doc file.