Word bookmarks vanish

[paulhagstrom]

Playing around with the demo version of Bookends to see if it meets my needs, I discovered something that I think will be a big problem for the way I have used Word up to now. I don't know if there's likely to be a workaround, but I'll report it anyway for any thoughts...

I use a lot of autonumbered elements by inserting fields like {seq ex} (numbers sequentially in the stream "ex" [example]), and then I bookmark them in Word (Insert->Bookmark...) so that elsewhere I can insert a reference with {ref bookmarkname} in order to get text like "As shown in (2), below, ..." that will renumber itself as I insert and remove examples. Everything is recomputed by selecting all and updating fields.

What I'm discovering is that although my fields ({seq ex}, {ref bname}) survive the trip to Bookends and back for scanning, my bookmarks don't. So, upon my return to Word, I find my document is rife with "Error! Reference source not found." messages.

Not being able to rely on bookmarks is such a fundamental change to my Word usage style that I may not be able to make the transition (not to mention being unsure what to use in their place). I realize that the Word bookmarks probably do not travel to the clipboard and hence won't travel to Bookends, and I suspect that there is simply no way around this problem, short of a deep change in how Bookends sends data back to Word (e.g., if it is possible to surgically search-and-replace the references, rather than sending back the whole document to be repasted in full).

Have I diagnosed the situation correctly? Has anyone confronted this problem before and emerged victorious?

BTW, Mellel seems not to be able to do this (referencing autonumbers) at all yet, so I'm pretty much anchored to Word until that changes.

[Jon]

You don't say which version of Word you are using, X or 2004.

This page explains the problems with cross-references/bookmarks and Word X:

http://www.sonnysoftware.com/issues.html

In short, it is a bug in Word X. You can work around it by saving as RTF and scanning that.

The bug was fixed in Word 2004.

If this is not the same issue, please contact me directly.

Jon
Sonny Software

[paulhagstrom]

In short, it is a bug in Word X. You can work around it by saving as RTF and scanning that.

The bug was fixed in Word 2004.

Yep, that sound like it might be it. Sorry, I searched the forums, but I missed that "issues" page on the main site. I haven't switcheed to Word 2004 because I heard horror stories from early adopters, but it may be stable enough now for me to gamble on it.

I didn't realize RTF would preserve bookmarks, I figured that was proprietary Word. I'll try this out. One thing before I do, though: What I'm using are bookmarks and references, not Word's "cross-reference" function, which I find unwieldy. It may rely on the same underlying technology, but I'm not sure -- in principle, bookmarks could be different from cross-references, and only cross-references seem to be addressed on the "issues" page.

Thanks for the speedy response!

I'll edit this post or post a followup once I've tried this out.

[Jon]

One thing before I do, though: What I'm using are bookmarks and references, not Word's "cross-reference" function, which I find unwieldy. It may rely on the same underlying technology, but I'm not sure -- in principle, bookmarks could be different from cross-references, and only cross-references seem to be addressed on the "issues" page.

I think it's the same issue. But please try and see. FWIW, as far as I know, Word 2004 is at least a stable as Word X (although it seems more sluggish to me).

Jon
Sonny Software

[paulhagstrom]

Ok, I tried saving my document as RTF and sending it through Bookends. Worked as advertised, and my bookmarks survived.

One downside is that the only options seem to be to create a new document with the temporary citations replaced with no hidden information (so, no unscan or rescan) or not create a new document, in which case the temporary citations are not replaced.

Since RTF seems capable of handling fields, couldn't hidden information be entered into RTF files as well? I get the following when I do the replace through Word integration:

{\field\fldedit{\*\fldinst {ADDIN BEC\{%Smith 2004\}}}{\fldrslt {(2004)}}}

This looks like it contains proprietary elements, I imagine that a plain-vanilla RTF reader might not know what to do with that, in which case the way Bookends handles it now is probably about as good as it is going to get (unless there was a preference setting for "assume RTF files will be opened in Word").

I like the Word integration route better than going via RTF, particularly if there's no rescan/unscan information saved in the RTF file. Guess its time to feed Microsoft again and spring for the 2004 upgrade.

Thanks again.

[Jon]

One downside is that the only options seem to be to create a new document with the temporary citations replaced with no hidden information (so, no unscan or rescan) or not create a new document, in which case the temporary citations are not replaced.

Right. Hidden information is an option only for documents scanned from within Word itself.

Since RTF seems capable of handling fields, couldn't hidden information be entered into RTF files as well? I get the following when I do the replace through Word integration:

{\field\fldedit{\*\fldinst {ADDIN BEC\{%Smith 2004\}}}{\fldrslt {(2004)}}}

This looks like it contains proprietary elements, I imagine that a plain-vanilla RTF reader might not know what to do with that, in which case the way Bookends handles it now is probably about as good as it is going to get (unless there was a preference setting for "assume RTF files will be opened in Word").

Yes, it's proprietary. It's possible we could include it in an RTF file scan, but haven't done so for fear of conflicts with every other applications (that is, every other word processor except Word and Mellel).

BTW, you might take a look at Mellel. Much cheaper than the Word 2004 upgrade, and you might find it suits your needs (it's worth a look, in any case).

Jon
Sonny Software

[paulhagstrom]

BTW, you might take a look at Mellel. Much cheaper than the Word 2004 upgrade, and you might find it suits your needs (it's worth a look, in any case).

I'd love to try Mellel seriously, but until it allows reference to autonumbers, I can't really use it for the majority of what I write. There did seem to be some suggestion in the Mellel forums that this is coming, but it's not there yet. Apart from that, though, I do like Mellel from what I've seen of it. I'd also recommend it for anyone considering alternatives to Word on the Mac.