Word Document on Mac and PC compatability problem

[Luise]

Dear All,

I have created a merged document (50 pages) on the PC
using Word XP which is then used by other people (who
mostly download it from a server or also form outlook
shared documents.

As it also contains text fields i protected it. Before
protecting it i removed the connection to the data source
using the 'Select Document Type' feature and changed it to
a Normal Word Document.

This document, as explained above, is then used by others
who take it from the server and open it on their Mac
machines to write text into the fields.

Some of the users have then procceeded to unlock the
document (in order to spell check) and when they lock it
agian the following thing happens: the merged-in data
(names and birthdates) reverts back to the place holders
for the names eg. >>Last Name<< instead of Meyer. THis
process seems to be irreversible.

I tried to (on the Mac) change the view back by using the
button 'View Merged Data' (it is lablelled <<ABC>>) but of
course it is not active (as there is no data source
attached)...

any ideas anyone?

Thank you,

Luise

 

[Peter Jamieson]

It sounds as if what you are doing is previewing the mail merge main
document, locating the record you need, then preserving the informaiton by
locking the document. If so, try using a different approach to preserving
the information - instead of locking it, select the document and use
ctrl-shift-F9 to "Unlink" the fields, i.e. leave the text data where the
field codes were. Then distribute the document.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Your users can run the spell check using the macro at
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/MacrosVBA/SpellcheckProtectDoc.htm without
losing their data. When you reprotect a document without using vba to set
the noreset property to True, the formfields revert to their beginning
state. (This isn't true using the lock icon in Word 2003, but otherwise is.)

You can fix this behavior with a bit of work. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/TurnFmFlfResetOff.htm. It has code that
you can put in your template.