WD: Certain Characters Do Not Display in Field Result

Article ID: 134998 - View products that this article applies to.
This article was previously published under Q134998
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SYMPTOMS

The backslash ( \ ) and quotation mark ( " ) characters don't display in field results as you intended.

For example, the field
{FILLIN "Type "M" or "F" in the box."}
results in the dialog box showing only the word "Type," without the quotation marks.

CAUSE

The backslash and quotation mark characters are special characters in fields. The backslash is used to indicate the next character as a switch command in the field. Quotation marks are used to enclose literal text strings (see below) within a field.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, use a backslash (with no space) before the character you want to include. This tells Word that you want to include this character in the text string.

Preface a quotation mark with \ to make it display in a field code.

For example, the field
{FILLIN "Type \"M\" or \"F\" in the box."}
appears in the dialog box as:
Type "M" or "F" in the box.
You must also use an extra backslash in an INCLUDE field when you indicate a long Windows path. For example:
{includetext "c:\\winword\\docs\\start.doc"}
For more information about using special characters inside fields, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
146648 How to Use Quotation Marks in a Conditional Merge Result

REFERENCES

"Microsoft Word User's Guide," version 6.0, Chapter 32, pages 731-741.

Properties

Article ID: 134998 - Last Review: August 16, 2005 - Revision: 1.1
APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Word 6.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Word 6.0a
  • Microsoft Word 6.0c
  • Microsoft Word 6.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Word 95 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Word 95a
  • Microsoft Word 6.0 for Macintosh
  • Microsoft Word 6.01 for Macintosh
  • Microsoft Word 6.01 for Macintosh
Keywords: 
kbfield kbhowto KB134998
Retired KB Content Disclaimer
This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.

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