Hi

I'm finding it difficult to explain what I'd like to do but here goes!

I have documents which are to be sent to others, but I want to have two versions. One version (my version) is to have additional information in it that I don't want others to see. At present, I would go through and delete that information line by line, but then if I want to make any changes to my document and have these changes als apply to the copy for others, I have to go through both.



I was wondering if it is possible to 'tag' paragraphs/sentences which I would then remove from one version by the client of a button? Or maybe hide them from the document?

Any help would be much appreciated - this could save a lot of time! If you need clarification please let me know.

Thanks

Jack

Initial thought – set up a new style for your 'private' paragraphs. To distribute a safe copy, change that style to hidden text and generate a .pdf …


From what I've seen going past in this forum, I suspect there should also be ways you can send people a .docx where they can't change the style definitions. Now I'll stand back and watch the replies pour in ;-}

Hidden text and send as pdf is the simplest solution.


The idea of using a special style for this is excellent in case you want to print out your full version.


The only way to be confident that a recipient will see what you sent is to send a pdf.

My typical situation is I have 'my' documents and then 5 further variations of them for distribution to different externals. PDFs alone aren't sufficient for distro, and Styles would be cumbersome and error-prone with 6 doc types in total.

I make a Base doc, the 'my' doc. This is THE doc from which all good things come, so it's carefully stored and backed up. Whenever there are changes to be made, they are made to this Base doc and then a new set of external variants are made.

To avoid this being a chore, and worse, error-prone, I have it automated via macros I access on a custom tab in my Word ribbon. Takes approx 10 seconds to make the 5 variants.

In your situation, do what the guys said above—make your private paragraphs a unique style. If you don't want to have to click the Style every time you write a private para, then 'tag' the start of the para instead, eg with Zxc. When your doc is complete, do a global replace for Zxc and replace it with 'Found What' text and your private style. Then do another global replace of Zxc with nothing. You should of course macro those 2 jobs.

When you want to produce your external version, right-click on your private Style name, select the "Select all XX instances" and press the Delete key. F12 to Save As your new external doc. You could reduce that to one button click also via macro.