Make a dynamic doc with Word 2013

Hi all,

Today, nothing technical. Just a little tip in Word (2013 at least). I always have to write technical documentations before every values are defined by the project. I don’t know of naming convention or final fqdn for services, etc. I spend a lot of time in Ctrl + H my doc, replacing a server name or an IP address. And as a lazy techie, I don’t like to make things twice.

So, the today tip helped me to review my docs more quickly and maybe reuse it in other context. In your document, create a chapter called “variables” where you’ll set all the names, IP, values or anything you’re not sure at the time you write the document. In this chapter, you just have to create a bookmark by typing Ctrl+F9 and your bookmark definition. For example :

Note : You have to type “Ctrl+F9 set StoreFrontServiceName SF.domain.com” on your keyboard. Don’t write bracket “{ }” key because Word won’t recognize it as bookmark.

Then, in your documentation, when you want to use the Storefront Service Name, just write Ctrl+F9 StoreFrontServiceName :

When the service name is validated, you just have to go in your variables chapter and replace SF.domain.com by the correct value. Then select the whole document (Ctrl+a), right-click  the content and choose “update field”. You’ll see that nothing is visible in your variables chapter and can remove the title. Don’t remove the content. Even if it is not visible, the variables definitions are still there.

Thanks for reading.

Jerome.