Condition text in Word (2000)

["Chuck Martin" <twriter -at- sonic -dot- net>]

OK, I've done a number of searches on this topic, both on the web and in the
TECHWR-L archives (one hit from 1996 claimed to have a solution--that was in
a Word attachment that the search result put in inline text, which made it
quite useless), in Word's Help system, in the MSDN library, in the Microsoft
knowledgebase, and in the several books I have on Word and Word/VBA
programming. I can find nothing so far that will either tell me definitively
how I can do what I want or that it just can't be done in Word.

Bottom line, I want to create conditional text in Word, and then be able to
control when it does and doesn't appear. The goal is to create one document
to cover multiple, similar products. In this instance, one product may
typically be a subset of another. There might also be slight differences
between products. So I have to have the capability to not only to what we're
calling token substitution (if it were only that, using custom document
properties with field codes work work as a solution), but also to use or not
use sections of text, sections that could be anything from a phrase to
several paragraphs.

I've been working in VBA, using what limited skills I have in that language,
but one of the issues is that I cna't find a way to mark text with invisible
characteristics (as opposed to the visible characteristics of font size,
color, bold, etc.). If I could create custome character format, then I
could, say, make a section of text as Product1, which would not appear in
the Product 2 version, and when I want to create a Product 2 manual, I'd run
a macro to make all Product1-marked text hidden, then re-generate the
pagination and TOC.

Ideas? Resources?

--
--
"I don't entirely understand it but it is true: Highly skilled
carpenters don't get insulted when told they are not architects,
but highly skilled programmers do get insulted when told
they are not UI designers."
      - anonymous programmer quoted in "GUI Bloopers"

Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net      www.writeforyou.com



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