Hi,
I wonder if is possible to hide several chapters and/or sections in one document, and then show some chapters depending on who the end reader will be?


Example:
Original document: 20 chapters
Chapter 3,4, 7 and 15 should only be visible for reader nr 1
Chapter 5, 6 and 11 should only be visible for reader nr 2
and so on...
The rest of the chapters (not restricted to a certain reader) should be visible for all readers.

I've read about Quick Parts, but that seems to be a manual solution and also only for one chapter/section at the time.
I was thinking of some way of putting tags on the chapters and then generate a reader specific version but don't know if that is the right way to go - or even if it is possible.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Not heard of conditional text like this in Word, though I've used it in other tools … if Word does now handle conditional text I'd be interested to find out more.

There are probably a number of ways. The more sophisticated would involve a macros.

The only semi-simple way I can think of to do this would require that you know, in advance, the user name the person will use for logging in to Word. This may or may not be the same name they use in Windows.

Then you could store your alternatives as AutoText (one of the quick parts) in your document's template and use IF fields to test for the user name and display the appropriate AutoText entries using AutoText fields. (Actually, you could have the entire text inside the IF field rather than an AutoText field, but that would really bloat your documents.)

In part, it depends on how sensitive the text you are hiding is. There is nothing secure about this solution.

Again, AutoText must be stored in a template. Your users would be creating new documents based on the template, not opening the template.

You could have an AutoNew macro in your template that would update and unlink all the AutoText fields and then all the IF fields. It could even, after doing that, attach the document to the user's normal template breaking access to your non-displayed AutoText.

So, the answer is, yes, it can be done. It depends on how much effort you want to put into it.

Automated Boilerplate Using Microsoft Word
AutoText field
IF field

I understand by the answers I get, that I haven't been crystal clear in the original question.
I should have said "recipients" instead of "reader".
The idea is that I have an original (a template) with 20 chapters. I want to be able to easily adjust this information and send only some of it to some recipients and some information to other recipients. Exchange the term "reader no 1" with "recipient Group 1" in the original post and you might get the idea. To clarify - the recipients do not need the template, as they will not do any updates.
I do not have any sensitive information I want to hide, it is just a matter of showing only the information that the recipient is interested in reading, as it is a very large document originally.

Do you still recommend Autotext and IF fields?

I am no stranger to macros, although I have only worked with them in Excel so far. But, an "easy" way is better as there are other - and less technical - people who will update the original template. That said, I would be interested in any macro example that shows how this can be done :-)

Yes. No macros should be necessary. Use a Mail Merge. This should be simpler than by user name. You can have a field in each recipient's data record that says which parts they get and test for that field. If you have three different groupings of your material, the field contents could be as simple as 1, 2, or 3.

Otherwise, if you want to be able to change it on the fly, you can use an ASK field to get what gets sent to each recipient on-the-fly.

The merged document will not contain anything except what you want.

This works for just one recipient at a time as well as for multiple recipients. You just pick your recipients when doing the merge.

I have tested mail merge and together with IF fields it works!

At first I was reluctant as I thought I would have to cut the original document into pieces, and put all optional texts in a db field. But when I added IF statements along side the mail merge I could avoid moving larger chapters away from the original.


I am not sure I would recommend this solution to anyone who isn't familiar with code, but otherwise it is pretty simple.

1. Go to tab Mailings and create a Recipient list.
2. Add IF fields that check against the recipient list and remember to add quotes around the text you want to show. (
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/mailmerge/MMergeIfFields.htm)
3. Start Mail Merge
4. Finish & Merge


The one thing to remember is to activate Show field codes (http://www.extendoffice.com/documents/word/899-word-display-hide-field-codes.html#a2), otherwise it will be hard to control the document when updating it.

A possible downside on this solution is - as you Charles pointed out earlier - that the IF fields can bloat the document if they are many.

Thank you so much for you help!