Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 14, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
When you are working with documents—particularly long documents created by someone else—you may have a need to delete all the fields in the document. The answer to how you do this depends almost entirely on what you mean by "deleting" a field.
If you mean that you want to get rid of the fields and replace them with plain text that represents the result of the field, then the easiest method is to select the entire document (Ctrl+A) and then press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to "unlink" the fields. Everyplace there was a field, the field is deleted and replaced with the result of the field.
If you simply want to get rid of all the fields and don't care that they be replaced with anything, you can use the Find and Replace capabilities of Word. Follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
All the fields in your document should now be gone. If you have to get rid of fields in this way quite often, it makes sense to create a macro that will handle the task for you. The following is a simple, short macro that goes through all the parts of your document and removes all the fields.
Sub DeleteFields() Dim rng As Range For Each rng In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges With rng.Fields While .Count > 0 .Item(1).Delete Wend End With Next End Sub
You can, of course, assign the macro to a toolbar button or a shortcut key so it can be called into action as quickly as possible.
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1864) 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: Deleting All Fields.
Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!
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