

However, there may be times when you actually need two form fields in your document, and you want the second form field to default to whatever the user entered into the first form field. This must be done with a macro, and does seem a bit of an overkill, in light of the bookmark feature already discussed.

The second general method for copying field contents involves literally copying the information from one field to another. Either of these requires manual action on the part of the user, but it is possible to start creating macros that would do it automatically. (This behavior is controlled by an option on the Print tab of the Options dialog box.) The field can, of course, also be updated by selecting it and pressing F9. (Well, it is and it isn't.) You sort of have to trust Word on this, since the contents of fields (the REF field) are not generally updated until you print or look at a print preview for the document.

Understand that even though you can reuse form field content information in this manner, the information is not updated automatically when the user leaves the form field.

Now position your insertion point wherever you want the contents of the form to appear. (It will be a name such as Text1.) You should remember this name for the form field whose contents you want to use elsewhere. This displays the Form Field Options dialog box, and in the lower portion of the dialog box is the bookmark name for the field. You can discover the name (and change it if desired) by right-clicking on the form field and choosing Properties from the Context menu. This name depends on the type of form field you entered. Every time you enter a form field in a document, it is assigned a name. The second way involves actually copying information from one field to another.įirst, let's look at the solution that uses bookmarks. Thus, you can use bookmark reference fields throughout your document to refer to whatever the user entered in the field. The first way involves the fact that any time you insert a form field in a document, the contents of the field are automatically bookmarked. There are two ways you can approach this. It would obviously be easiest if the user only needed to enter their name once and then it was automatically filled in elsewhere in the form. For instance, the form could have multiple pages, and you need the user's name at the top of each page. Let's say you are developing a form, and you need to copy the contents of one form field to another.
