Rogue 'Save Changes' prompt in Word

[AndrewJ]

When I open Word documents simply to print them, when I go to close them
again I get prompted as to whether I want to save any changes, even though I
haven't made any.

Why does Word do this (when, say, OpenOffice Writer doesn't)? Is there a way
to turn this off? It's very frustrating when you have loads of documents...

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you print a document an internal flag is updated to record the last print
date in the document properties. This shows as a change that requires
saving. How Open Office does things is irrelevant.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[AndrewJ]

Thanks for the reply.

BTW, the only reason I mentioned OpenOffice was that it has the option of
turning this feature off and I wondered whether or not Word also had that
feature, so it was relevant in that sense.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you clear the "Update fields" box on the Print tab of Tools | Options,
there is less likelihood that you will be prompted to save (Word records
"Update Fields" as an action, which you can see in the Undo list); some
fields (page numbers and all other fields in the header and footer) will be
updated anyway, but this may not trigger an Undo.

Another issue that triggers the message, however, is smart tags; see
"WD2002: You Are Prompted to Save Changes When You Close a Document Even
Though You Have Made No Changes" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816473

 

[AndrewJ]

Thanks - most helpful.

If you clear the "Update fields" box on the Print tab of Tools | Options,
there is less likelihood that you will be prompted to save (Word records
"Update Fields" as an action, which you can see in the Undo list); some
fields (page numbers and all other fields in the header and footer) will be
updated anyway, but this may not trigger an Undo.

Another issue that triggers the message, however, is smart tags; see
"WD2002: You Are Prompted to Save Changes When You Close a Document Even
Though You Have Made No Changes" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816473

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA