Content control: repeat information and its format! Solved

Question

Hello,

I am working on a report template in Word 2007 and I’ve discovered content controls and the interesting possibility they offer to repeat information in several places in a document without needing to update fields by any manipulation. My problem is that in one specific case this does not work: I inserted a content control on my title page via the menu "Insert" > "Quick Parts" > "Document Property" and edited the properties of this control in design mode so that it is named "Report Title". I copy this content control onto page 3. When I click on each of the two fields, the appropriate style is indeed selected (in the first case it should display Arial 12 bold and in the second case Arial 16 bold).

I type my report title on the title page, I go to see what it looks like on page 3 and there… disaster! My title appears in Times New Roman in the second field… It’s hard to understand, I tried creating and assigning specific styles via the content control properties but nothing works, that font change keeps coming back. I should add that I used the same technique elsewhere in the document (specifically to repeat the title of an appendix) and there it works very well!

In the end, to solve the problem I had to revert to the old technique I know which is to use RefStyle and edit fields in legacy form fields, but that’s less nice since the user will have to update the field himself by clicking on it and pressing F9.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have encountered this problem or have an idea how to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

m@rina · Answer

Hello,

The problem often comes from poorly defined styles from the start. When you create a document, and especially a template, you should start by creating a stylesheet that is impeccable. Impeccable means that you should begin by using a theme with a set of fonts and stay with its fonts, without manual modifications in the styles.

This implies, in general, that one should not, in the styles, clearly state the name of the font. For the font, you choose either the "title font" or the "body font".

That’s what I can say without seeing your document. For a real analysis, you can upload the document online
https://www.cjoint.com/
and I will look at what’s wrong.

m@rina

-- 
We are not clairvoyants: don’t forget to indicate the version of the software used, and how you proceeded.

Acryde · Answer

Hello,  And thank you for your quick reply. It is quite possible that the stylesheet is not flawless as you say, I am not very skilled in this area.  Here is the link to an excerpt of the template (The first 3 pages) https://www.cjoint.com/c/FDfiYbj4bvB  My problem is as described previously on the content control "report title". If you enter a title p.1 the style is respected but in the associated control on p.3 it switches to Times New Roman.  Moreover I used the RefStyle technique to repeat the report reference in the footer. If I use the content controls instead of the inherited form fields, Word shows brackets < and > when it repeats the reference in the footer. If someone has a suggestion at this level as well I’m all ears, but it isn’t very bothersome.  Acryde

Acryde · Answer

Hello,  Thanks to your advice, it finally works!  In the version you sent me back, the content control bug is still there but by changing the styles "report title" and "inner report title" (which are only used to format these two content controls) and by switching them to "Arial (Headings)", my problem is solved!  Regarding the odd-page section break that was inserted at the bottom of the title page, it had a purpose, namely to "isolate" the title page which is printed separately by our reprography service on colored cardboard. There were indeed 3 pages in the version I sent you, but the second was "invisible" because it corresponded to the back of the title page generated by the odd-page section break.  One small issue remains: the footer that reports an error in your version aims to copy the report reference entered on the first page with the style "refuniq" (which is used only for this purpose). My problem is that if I use a content control to enter this reference on the first page, Word systematically adds angle brackets "" at the start and end of the footer that calls this reference. The workaround I found online is to hide these brackets (using font settings): they continue to appear on screen (with dotted underlines) but disappear at printing. The problem is that the model user might try to remove them themselves... The other workaround I had chosen is to use the old inherited text fields for entering the reference, which do not generate these brackets in the footer. Ideally I would prefer not to use the inherited controls in my template... If you have any ideas I’m all ears.  https://www.cjoint.com/c/FDgmSWsw7xB  Thanks again and have a good day!

Acryde · Answer

Finally, after further research, I found how not to display the brackets in the document after hiding them. You need to go to Word options and in the View menu under the heading "always show these formatting marks on screen" uncheck the "Hidden text" box.  All that remains is to fine-tune the styles. My intention is indeed for this template to be distributed. What do you recommend, because you seemed to say that it wasn’t at all good? I must admit I’m not great at managing styles and I probably made a mistake starting from an old template that already exists with us to improve it. But I didn’t really know how to proceed otherwise, most of the Word templates offered have far too many frills for the use I’m envisioning in my case...  Acryde

m@rina · Answer

Hello,  You talk about brackets and you show the signs <>... The brackets are: [ ] and they allow, in Word, to indicate the location of bookmarks. They are part of non-printing format marks, and we should always display these marks because it’s the proper method to see what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. To show and hide, there’s no need to go into options; simply use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+8 (or click the ¶ button on the Home tab. As for the Internet-found “trick” that hides them... you can immediately boycott that site, it’s not serious.  Now that you display them or not, it’s your choice and it’s on your PC. It has nothing to do with the model; it depends on each user’s choice. So, if it’s hidden on your end, it won’t necessarily be hidden for users. Otherwise, in your model, there are indeed two bookmarks (i.e., brackets) but not in the footer where there is no bookmark... Your bookmarks are useless here, so I advise you to delete them.  Regarding styles for a template, I can’t give you a full training in a forum post, but here’s what we can mainly say:  1) Start by creating a theme (or choose an existing theme), consisting of a color scheme and a set of fonts (as I explained earlier). 2) Update the Normal style: this style is the basis for all other styles; it will be the default style in the template and the font should be the theme font (as explained earlier). You can of course choose size, spacing, line spacing, etc. 3) All other styles will be based on the Normal style. 4) The title styles (do not create new ones) are the title styles provided by Word: Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. The font should be the theme font (as explained above).  Specificity for content control styles that will be used in STYLEREF fields. There is a kind of bug in Word that makes not all styles listed in the content control properties dialog. On the other hand, you can create it from that dialog, and that’s what you have to do.  In general, we create as few styles as possible. Those that are mandatory: the Normal style and the heading styles (not all). Also plan the bullet list styles if needed for the document. Then, arrange to display only the styles useful to users because a long list of stuff is useless. They should also be sorted, preferably logically, for example: - Normal - Bullet list - Bullet list2 - Heading 1 - Heading 2 - Heading 3  Thus the user has only what they need at their disposal. In your model I see lots of styles and we don’t know what they are and users can’t find their way. For example, the Refuniq style is only used to update the footer. It must therefore be invisible to users.  m@rina  -- We are not prophets: remember to indicate the version of the software used, and how you proceeded.

Acryde · Answer

Hello, And thanks for your styling advice. Regarding the other point, I was indeed talking about the marks "" that appear in the footer when I use a formatted content control with a RefStyle (which I named "refuniq" in my case) and I copy this field into the footer using the formula { STYLEREF Refuniq \* MERGEFORMAT } The bookmarks that appear in the sample of the template sent are indeed useful in the full version of my template. This one (despite typographic rules in this matter, but it’s not my responsibility…) is designed so that the body of the report has its own numbering and the following annexes are then renumbered starting from page 1. I place a bookmark on the last page of the report (before the annexes) and using a simple formula {pageref "nomdusignet" \h}, I display the total number of pages of the report excluding the annexes automatically in my footer of type page 1 on n (where n is the result of my formula). Acryde

Content control: repeat information and its format!

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