Skip to main content

Remove field code from Word document

e.g. before submitting a MS, or hand manipulating some formatting because Word does things (like cross-references) so half-assed [from here]

Select all the text (CTRL-A)
Press Ctrl+Shift+F9

Editing to remove anonymous comments that only contain thanks. I really appreciate the thanks, but it makes it harder to find comments that carry pertinent information. I'm also going to try and paste informative comments in the body of the post to make them easier to find.

Comments

  1. Thanks! Now why couldn't I find that on WORD's help?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This doesn't seem to work for footnotes/endnotes... correct?
    I want to remove the codes so as to be able to move all endnotes to a new position in the document...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sometimes you can't select all with Ctrl-A (in Word 2007). Then you have to go to the Developer tab>Protect Document> Restrict Formatting and Editing. Then in the side bar that appears, click "Stop Protection".

    For some reason, you have to do this even though the document was not protected in the first place!

    Then you can Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-Shift-F9.

    ReplyDelete
  4. thats great!!!thanks!!! I used for endnote and it works!!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. By the way, if you are using a Mac and Word 2008 I have found that the way to replicate this is to use Cmd-A, Cm-shift-fn-F9 (using the "fn" key as well.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks a lot....It worked perfectly..

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Mac trick worked beautifully! Many thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. OMG you are a lifesaver, thank you! And I agree with Deborah - why in the hell is that not in Word Help???

    ReplyDelete
  9. YESYESYES. Just what I was looking for. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I've been sent a pile of documents with a bunch of field codes in it but no source document. Is there any way to remove the field codes but retain their names? Eg when I use Ctrl+Shift+F9 to get rid of the field codes, I just end up with a whole bunch of "Error! Bookmark not defined". Can I keep the field code/name instead as actual text i.e. {Name}?

    I deal with a lot of old ducks who like going through bit by bit and filling these in manually rather than mail merging, and I don't like the thought of going through all these documents and replacing the fields with text one by one.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Interesting how many of us are battling a reference manager. Thank you so much, I even uninstalled EndNote on my computer, then had a document returned with the referencing reverted because the reviewer had EndNote installed. Most frustrating.... I wish I had known this before. I will certainly spread the word!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Does anyone know how can I do this: I removed the field codes (endnote 9) from a word document (2007) and now I don't have an original copy with the field codes inact. Propably I replaced the original document by accident. Can I restore them??? I have to insert the citations again?

    ReplyDelete
  13. That does not work for me: Shift-CTRL-F9 is the short cut for "play next track" and that is what it does (MAC). You should mention the operating system, this seems to be WIN only.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I found it: It is CMD-6 in Office for Mac 2011.

    ReplyDelete
  15. You are amazing! it works for me but I guess I have to do it for all my documents because it all affected my docs with hyperlinks...how i wish i could just do it in one doc and will upate all but this is good enough...it was really helpful! you are a life saver and saved me a lot of precious time..keep it up..i will add your page in my bookmark from now on..and by the way, you are a genius! :) God bless you :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks from Scott!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hiya, Can anyone help?!!!

    I keep getting some kind of code in my page numbers rather that the page number it self. When I use the Cntrl+ shift F9 function I am able to get the number, but then get the same number on every page!!!! Please advise. Thank you :-)

    ReplyDelete
  18. This is what I needed! Thanks

    By the way, if you are using a Mac and Word 2008 I have found that the way to replicate this is to use Cmd-A, Cm-shift-fn-F9 (using the "fn" key as well.)...

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hi everyone!

    Is there a permanent way to solve the problem of codes appearing instead of the actual field result? I didn't have any problems until today when suddenly word could not update properly my table of contents or my mendeley references and instead {TOC} or other codes were appearing. I tried opening old documents of mine which I new were 'correct' and the problem appeared in those too. shift+F9 works but I have to do everytime I create a new doc or open an existing doc. Any permanent solutions? does anyone know what might be causing this?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Great, thanks a lot! Included the tip in my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thank for this... worked for me and saved me... great job

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A note on Python's __exit__() and errors

Python's context managers are a very neat way of handling code that needs a teardown once you are done. Python objects have do have a destructor method ( __del__ ) called right before the last instance of the object is about to be destroyed. You can do a teardown there. However there is a lot of fine print to the __del__ method. A cleaner way of doing tear-downs is through Python's context manager , manifested as the with keyword. class CrushMe: def __init__(self): self.f = open('test.txt', 'w') def foo(self, a, b): self.f.write(str(a - b)) def __enter__(self): return self def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb): self.f.close() return True with CrushMe() as c: c.foo(2, 3) One thing that is important, and that got me just now, is error handling. I made the mistake of ignoring all those 'junk' arguments ( exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb ). I just skimmed the docs and what popped out is that you need to return True or

Using adminer on Mac OS X

adminer is a nice php based sqlite manager. I prefer the firefox plugin "sqlite manager" but it currently has a strange issue with FF5 that basically makes it unworkable, so I was looking for an alternative to tide me over. I really don't want apache running all the time on my computer and don't want people browsing to my computer, so what I needed to do was: Download the adminer php script into /Library/WebServer/Documents/ Change /etc/apache2/httpd.conf to allow running of php scripts (uncomment the line that begins: LoadModule php5_module Start the apache server: sudo apachectl -k start Operate the script by going to localhost Stop the server: sudo apachectl -k stop