Table of Contents/Authorities (Word 97)

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Anyone have any idea how to run a table of contents in a separate document? Someone I work with tells me it can be done, but I cannot tell how in Word 97.

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Do a search on this forum or in the online help for “RD fields”. This type of field allows you to create TOCs across multiple files and works very well once you use the right (odd) syntax to describe each file path.

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Thanks, I found it in the Microsoft Help files. I appreciate your hint of what to look for.

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Thanks, I found it in the Microsoft Help files. I appreciate your hint of what to look for.

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Do a search on this forum or in the online help for “RD fields”. This type of field allows you to create TOCs across multiple files and works very well once you use the right (odd) syntax to describe each file path.

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Hi Tia:
The syntax is something like:

{ TOC o “1-3” }
{ RD “C:My DocumentsFolderSubfolderFilename.doc” }

where the braces are inserted using Ctrl+F9, not typed. Note the double backslash in the filepath to the document. If you want you can use a single forward slash. You must use quotes to surround the filepath if there are any spaces.
Cheers,

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Phil,

Found it at the Microsoft site, once I knew what to look for. Thanks for the syntax, it was much clearer than what I found there. There is something more wrong with this TOC then I can fix, though. I carefully spent an hour marking all the headings in this 50 page document, ’cause they didn’t use styles, and then when I generated it, it only showed five entries for the TOC. There were some weird headings that didn’t show up in the dialog box where you choose the level until I left off the first letter of the heading. I’ve never seen anything like this before. But it is a document that has been worked on by many people over a couple of years (it just keeps getting recycled), and the last person formatted it manually so it looked perfect, but the underlying stuff was all screwed up. The secretaries at this law firm are bound and determined not to learn any of the funny stuff from Microsoft, it just takes too much effort, and they don’t have the time. Arghhh!

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. And thanks again for the help.

Tia

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Hi Tia:
If this document will be used over & over, there is something you can do which will sound a lot more complicated than it is.

1. Insert this document into a new fresh document & save it.
2. You might be able to do a Find/Replace to replace headings. e.g. Find all 16pt, bold, Arial & replace with Heading 1 style, Find all 14pt bold & replace with Heading 2, etc.
3. If this isn’t possible, you can remove all formatting by selecting everything (Ctrl+A) & pressing Ctrl+Spacebar (to remove character formatting) & Ctrl+Q (to remove direct paragraph formatting).
4. Arrange both windows vertically so you can see them side by side.
5. Go through the documents, applying styles to the new one to match the formatting of the old one. While this sounds difficult, it isn’t. Suppose you have three Heading 1 styles per page. Format the first one the way you want. Select it & press Ctrl+Shift+C (to copy the format). Then scroll to the next place you want a Heading 1 style & press Ctrl+Shift+V (to copy the format). From then on, scroll through the document & press F4 (repeats the last action) to copy the formatting.
6. Repeat for each heading style you want.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do this in less than an hour (which is probably less time than you’ve spent trying to find the answer ).

Hope this helps,

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You’re the best. I’ll copy this info to the secretary I was trying to fix it for.

Tia

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You’re the best. I’ll copy this info to the secretary I was trying to fix it for.

Tia

Reply | Quote

Hi Tia:
If this document will be used over & over, there is something you can do which will sound a lot more complicated than it is.

1. Insert this document into a new fresh document & save it.
2. You might be able to do a Find/Replace to replace headings. e.g. Find all 16pt, bold, Arial & replace with Heading 1 style, Find all 14pt bold & replace with Heading 2, etc.
3. If this isn’t possible, you can remove all formatting by selecting everything (Ctrl+A) & pressing Ctrl+Spacebar (to remove character formatting) & Ctrl+Q (to remove direct paragraph formatting).
4. Arrange both windows vertically so you can see them side by side.
5. Go through the documents, applying styles to the new one to match the formatting of the old one. While this sounds difficult, it isn’t. Suppose you have three Heading 1 styles per page. Format the first one the way you want. Select it & press Ctrl+Shift+C (to copy the format). Then scroll to the next place you want a Heading 1 style & press Ctrl+Shift+V (to copy the format). From then on, scroll through the document & press F4 (repeats the last action) to copy the formatting.
6. Repeat for each heading style you want.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do this in less than an hour (which is probably less time than you’ve spent trying to find the answer ).

Hope this helps,

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Phil,

Found it at the Microsoft site, once I knew what to look for. Thanks for the syntax, it was much clearer than what I found there. There is something more wrong with this TOC then I can fix, though. I carefully spent an hour marking all the headings in this 50 page document, ’cause they didn’t use styles, and then when I generated it, it only showed five entries for the TOC. There were some weird headings that didn’t show up in the dialog box where you choose the level until I left off the first letter of the heading. I’ve never seen anything like this before. But it is a document that has been worked on by many people over a couple of years (it just keeps getting recycled), and the last person formatted it manually so it looked perfect, but the underlying stuff was all screwed up. The secretaries at this law firm are bound and determined not to learn any of the funny stuff from Microsoft, it just takes too much effort, and they don’t have the time. Arghhh!

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. And thanks again for the help.

Tia

Reply | Quote

Hi Tia:
The syntax is something like:

{ TOC o “1-3” }
{ RD “C:My DocumentsFolderSubfolderFilename.doc” }

where the braces are inserted using Ctrl+F9, not typed. Note the double backslash in the filepath to the document. If you want you can use a single forward slash. You must use quotes to surround the filepath if there are any spaces.
Cheers,

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