Two thoughts:



First, the instructions are entirely unclear as to how to insert a REF field. It is possible I've done that part wrong. But who knows, I have nothing to go on.

Second, at my work computer, when clicking on the option in the Developer tab, a "text form field" appeared in these type of brackets: {} Now at my home computer, no such brackets appear, even though I have clicked the exact same thing. Both are Word 2013, W7. Both have also been installed without any special customization. Also, none of the clickable options give me the {} brackets unless I type ctrl+F9. Why would this be inconsistent?

On the computer where the braces { } appear, press Alt+F9 to toggle display of field results.

Well, that last step can't be done from the Developer tab, so I don't know what you were doing there. The most basic approach is to go to Insert|Cross-reference and insert a cross-reference to the formfield's bookmark name. Obviously, you'd do that where the cross-reference is to appear - not in the same place as the formfield you just inserted.

Once you've done that, applying the 'filling in forms' protection will enable data entry into the formfield.

Aside from the basic process I've just outlined, I'd have thought:
was pretty clear.
That's because your work computer has Word's field code display toggled 'on'. Pressing Alt-F9 toggles it on/off.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Quickly...

the typing REF thing you mentioned was how I tried to do it. It didn't work in the slightest. Just disappeared, as described earlier, when I restricted editing. Before that, it didn't reference anything, ever.

It won't do anything when you first create it and, as for the disappearing upon protection, if whatever its referencing is empty I would expect the reference to be empty too (i.e. to disappear). That's perfectly normal. That said, 'empty' formfields normally contain a series of spaces (i.e. unless you change the default).

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]