I need to build an application (can be VBA or other) that meets these criteria:

1. Understand Word document sections & sub-sections (ie. multi-level nesting of portions of the document). These will be defined in the 'original' version of the document.
2. Interpret a user-modified version of the original document, where:

a. the user may have edited the content of a section
b. the user may have added a new section

The assumption will be that Track Changes & password protection will be enabled when the original is sent out to the users. I have looked at these options but none are ideal:

1. Styles: each section heading would be given a style. The problem with this is the Style can't be protected unless it is completely removed. It also can't act as a unique section identifier (as numbering can be changed).
2. Section breaks: this does not allo applicaiton to buil a two-dimensional view of the document structure.

Ideally, what I want is some way to insert hidden reference tags throughout the document, that can't be deleted but that can be read by the application.

Does anyone know of such a feature in Word/VBA?