Tools to View Field Codes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 7, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

You know you can use the Field Codes check box on the View tab of the Options dialog box to control whether or not field codes are displayed in your document. You may even know that you can use Alt+F9 to switch between field codes and their results. However, what if you are mouse-bound, and want to accomplish the same task quickly without resorting to the keyboard?

You can add a tool to any toolbar you want that will toggle between field codes and field results. To add such a tool to your toolbar, follow these steps:

Choose Customize from the Tools menu. This displays the Customize dialog box.
Make sure the Commands tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

In the list of Categories, select View.
Select View Field Codes from the list of commands in the dialog box.
Use the mouse to drag the command (or button) from the dialog box to its new location on your toolbar. When you release the mouse button, a new icon appears on the toolbar.
Click on Close to dismiss the Customize dialog box.

Now, when you want to see your field coding, click on the new icon. Click again, and the results of the field codes are instead displayed.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (542) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Continuous Formatting for Footnotes

If you've got a lot of short footnotes in a document, you might be looking for a way to save space by "crunching up" the ...

Discover More

Using the Organizer to Manage Styles

One of the things that the Organizer is great at doing is managing styles. You can use it to move them between templates ...

Discover More

Adding a Horizontal Watermark with a PostScript Printer

In Windows, printer drivers translate formatting into a printer control language, like PostScript, that the printer ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Deleting All Fields

Fields can be a great way of adding small snippets of dynamic data to your documents. However, you may want to get rid of ...

Discover More

Understanding the ADVANCE Field

You can use the Advance field to change where text is positioned in your document. This tip shows how to use it and the ...

Discover More

A Quick-and-Dirty Word Count

Word provides a tool that counts the number of words in a document. Here's an alternative method of calculating the ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 2 + 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.