Hi.
My name is Renato Ravalli.



I've a "problem" I'm not able to solve, and I ask for a solution...

For work, I have to make many word documents (tecnical documents) as result of machinery's controls.

In the first part of the document, there is always a page where I have to insert/write some items (type of machinery, constructor, serial number, year of construction, lifting capacity, date, location and others)...

the same items are present in many other parts of the document, and every time I have to re-insert all of them, or copy/paste them (even longer)

I would find a way to automatically "copy" the items from the introduction to the other parts of the document (not all the items are present ewery part of the document)

I've tried with the bookmarks, and it almost works, but there is the big problem that, if I cancel the White space at the bottom of the bookmark, every reference to the bookmark gives me an error (it's wery easy to involontary cancel that space when I cange the item inside, or even the bookmark itself)(in addition there are oftem problems of impagination);
Starting from a common model, I have to change ewery item for every machinery, and so for every document

The question is:

1)
is it possible to "fixate" the bookmarks (I mean "[...]", so that, when a cancel the item inside, there is no risk to delete the bookmark itself and all the references?

or even better:

2)
is it possible to create in word a "mask", an initial "item inserting box", an initial window (sorry for my bad english) where is automatically asked, when the document is opened, to insert all the items, and find all of them compiled in the rest of the document?

Thank you wery much

There are several ways to handle this successfully. You are correct that bookmarks are easily deleted - especially if you edit the document directly, but if you create a VBA userform (your suggestion 2) to collect the data for the first page - see http://www.gmayor.com/Userform.htm - then you can use the FillBM function from my web site to write to the bookmarks in the document, both on the first page and wherever the same data appears elsewhere in the document. This method, and the use of document variables (also shown in the link above) are both practical approaches.

Or you could use mapped and linked content controls which require no VBA programming expertise, but are a little more complicated to insert. They do however have the advantage that whatever you write in one of the linked controls is repeated in the other(s).

To facilitate the insertion and linking of controls see http://www.gmayor.com/BookmarkandVariableEditor.htm and the content control version which appears towards the end of that page.

See also http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Repeating_Data.htm

__________________
Graham Mayor - MS MVP (Word) (2002-2019)
Visit my web site for more programming tips and ready made processes www.gmayor.com

In addition to the suggestions Graham made, I want to draw your attention to one of the solutions given in Greg Maxey's page on repeating data: Document Property Content Controls. This is a relatively easy way to repeat a few (< 16) items of information throughout a document. A change made in any of the controls, changes it in all of the linked controls.

Repeating Data Using Document Property Content Controls and Other Mapped Content Controls

This is a special case of using mapped content controls. They come already mapped.