Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Converting Field Results to Text.

Converting Field Results to Text

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 4, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


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Special fields have a great number of uses in Word. You already know that you can use fields to insert everything from the date and time to summary information for a document. There may be times, however, when you don't want to use a field for information.

As an example, let's say that you have a template that includes a field for today's date in it. When you create a document based on the template, today's date appears in the document. You make changes to the document, and then save it to disk. When you later open the document, instead of the original date, it contains the date of when you opened the file.

To get around this, you need to change the field contents to plain text before you save the file. In this instance, you would follow these steps:

  1. Create your new document based on the template. Today's date should appear, as normal.
  2. Select the date in the document.
  3. Press Ctrl+Shift+F9. This converts the field to actual text. Thus, the date is switched from a field to real text for the date.
  4. Make any other changes necessary in the document.
  5. Save the document as normal.

That's it. The next time you open the document, the date remains unchanged. You can also use this technique with any other field to convert it to text.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1035) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Converting Field Results to Text.

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. ...

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What is six less than 6?

2023-01-02 15:00:45

Paul Robinson

The CTRL+SHIFT+F9 does not work in my copy of office 2010


2022-06-16 04:25:05

Mahzad

Thanks a lot. i used it for references (Bibliography).


2021-08-17 05:08:06

Benyamin Limanto

Well. this tips is very good! I have hard time to convert references field to add DOI url for my paper, welp O365 Word right click doesn't provide any help or anything regarding convert to plain text, not as the same as right click on the citation itself. well this website always surprise me! Thank you Mr. Allen!


2020-09-29 15:44:06

Tony

This is great. Do you know if there is a way to do this to all mail merge fields in a document in a single action?
Cheers!


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