Re: Conditional inclusion of WordArt?

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From: Bill Watkins (Bill.noway.Watkins_at_noway.boeing.com)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 17:21:56 -0600

I turned off the NAV Office plug-in option, but it had no apparent effect.
(We use MacAfee and Word 2000 in the office, and I had similar problems
there, albeit using a direct paste of the object into the IF field.)

Part of the triggering mechanism appears to be having the two pages in view
at the same time. It sometimes takes a bit of scrolling up and down over
the "border" between the pages before the fun starts. (Watch Winword in the
process list while doing this. What I've seen is some early oscillation in
memory, but then a steady rise, accompanied by CPU usage in the 50% range.)

"Graham Mayor" <gmayor@DELETECAPSmvps.org> wrote in message
news:uWnpqvPBFHA.2316@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>I can't reproduce the problem here using your examples (Word 2003). To be
> sure there is nothing amiss with your Word installation checkout the
> measures listed at
> http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm
> and http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm
> If you are using Norton AV, uncheck its office plug-in option.
>
> --
> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
> Graham Mayor - Word MVP
>
> My web site www.gmayor.com
> Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
>
>
>
>
> Bill Watkins wrote:
>> Ouch -- I think I stumbled into a nasty bug.
>>
>> It appears that if I try to create a conditional graphic watermark in
>> a document by putting something like the following into an IF field
>> in a header, Word (2000 or 2003) will eventually go nuts:
>>
>> { IF { DOCPROPERTY Status} = "Draft" {AUTOTEXT DRAFTGRAPHIC \*
>> MERGEFORMAT }"Nothing" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>>
>> (DRAFTGRAPHIC contains a Picture that started out as a WordArt
>> object. The Picture is set for behind text, and horizontal and
>> vertial centering.)
>>
>> As I posted in an earlier message in the thread, when I tried pasting
>> the object in question directly into the "success text" part of the
>> IF field, I got all kinds of weird effects from the graphic,
>> including "cookie cutter stamps" of the graphic, flashing graphics,
>> etc., with Word eventually choking. (That was in Word 2000.)
>>
>> I thought adding the graphic via AutoText instead of paste to the IF
>> field was the fix, until I started adding a second page to the
>> template I was designing. (Using Word 2003 this time.) When I added
>> the second page with a Page Break, the weirdness started happening
>> again. A look at the Task Manager showed Word's memory climbing and
>> Word grabbing up to 50% of the CPU. Word itself wouldn't give me a
>> cursor, wouldn't let me resize the Window, and responded very slowly
>> if at all to menu clicks or Close button hits. The Spell checker
>> also seemed to go off on tear, even though there was only one line of
>> text in a test document.
>>
>> I did not see this behavior if the field code was placed in the body
>> text, only when in a header. I reproduced the behavior with a fresh
>> template, new graphics, and manually inserted field codes.
>>
>> This is how I reproduced the problem in a very simple template (Word
>> 2003): Create a new template.
>> Create a simple WordArt object in the template.
>> Copy and Paste-Special that object as a Picture in the same template.
>> Set the Picture format to behind-text, and horizontally and vertically
>> centered.
>> Add the picture to that template's AutoText with a name like
>> "DRAFTGRAPHIC". Save the template.
>> Start a second template (the problem might reproduce in the original
>> template, but I didn't try that).
>> Use the Organizer to copy the AutoText item DRAFTGRAPHIC from the
>> first template into the second template.
>> If the property isn't already there, add a "Status" property to the
>> second template, and give it the value "Draft".
>> View Header/Footer.
>> Put the following field code into the header (I added some text like
>> "It's here:" in front of the field code --don't know if this has
>> anything to do with it or not.):
>> { IF { DOCPROPERTY Status} = "Draft" {AUTOTEXT DRAFTGRAPHIC \*
>> MERGEFORMAT }"Nothing" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>> - Refresh the header. The graphic from the AutoText should now be
>> visible on the page.
>>
>> So far, so good. Nothing wierd should be happening (that I've seen,
>> anyway). If the Task Manager is up, Word's CPU and memory stats should
>> appear stable.
>>
>> - Leave the header and go the body text.
>> - Enter a manual Page Break. You should now have the picture showing
>> on both pages.
>> - Scroll up and down over both pages a few times. (Setting the view
>> to "Two Pages" seems to accelerate the effect -- there appears to be
>> some relationship with both copies of the picture being visible at
>> the same time.)
>>
>> Things to look for at this point -- Word gets very "busy" and won't
>> give you a cursor or respond reasonably to menu or window operations,
>> the spell checker runs continuously, the title bar is grayed, CPU and
>> memory usage start rising, and if things get really hairy, you may
>> catch two instances of the document's task appearing in the Task
>> Manager. (It seems like the more stuff that's in the document, the
>> faster things go to heck.)
>>
>> The things that have been constant in my attempts to make this work
>> have been the combination of the IF field containing a graphic object
>> (whether directly pasted or via AutoText) in a header. On the
>> surface, it looks like this is causing either a memory leak, or some
>> kind of infinite repagination (which might explain the Spell checker
>> behavior).
>>
>>
>> "Graham Mayor" <gmayor@DELETECAPSmvps.org> wrote in message
>> news:%23%23W3dK3AFHA.2012@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>> If you are going to insert a floating image then you are going to
>>> have to use the autotext method. Position the word art before saving
>>> it as autotext.
>>>
>>> --
>>> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
>>> Graham Mayor - Word MVP
>>>
>>> My web site www.gmayor.com
>>> Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
>>> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Bill Watkins wrote:
>>>> I've had a little more luck getting the WordArt pastes into the IF
>>>> field, but I'm having trouble getting reliable behaivior from the
>>>> field if the WordArt object is "floating". It seems like once the
>>>> IF field inserts the object as floating, it can't be removed by a
>>>> later update of the field. The floating object remains even if I
>>>> delete
>>>> the entire field, and can only be deleted by direct deletion of the
>>>> object. (It's made more confusing, because there's no apparent
>>>> indication that the object is "in" the fieldcode.)
>>>>
>>>> The behavior seems reliable if I insert the object as an in-line
>>>> "Picture", but in this case, you lose the object positioning
>>>> information and have to mess around with paragraph positioning (of
>>>> the field itself).
>>>>
>>>> Inserting from Autotext also worked, but in this case, it looks like
>>>> you have to contend with template storage.
>>>>
>>>> "Bill Watkins" <bill.bogus.watkins@boeing.bogus.com> wrote in
>>>> message news:egeM13vAFHA.936@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>>>>> Graham, thanks for the tip --
>>>>>
>>>>> I had tried to find a way to "grab" the WordArt object and paste it
>>>>> into the IF "action" field before I posted the question, but
>>>>> couldn't figure a way to do it (I couldn't seem to find a link
>>>>> field
>>>>> or anything similar "underneath" it that actually stored the
>>>>> object). Can you suggest how to copy it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Bill
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "Graham Mayor" <gmayor@DELETECAPSmvps.org> wrote in message
>>>>> news:OTvj1PVAFHA.2316@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>>>>> You can use the Word Art (in Word 2002/3) in the conditional field
>>>>>> just as if it were text,
>>>>>> or save the required artwork as an autotext entry and use the
>>>>>> conditional field to insert an autotext field to call the graphic.
>>>>>> eg
>>>>>> {IF {Mergefield fieldname} = condition "Put your Word Art here"}
>>>>>> or
>>>>>> {IF {Mergefield fieldname} = condition "{Autotext "name"}"}
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You will have to build the condition by hand using CTRL+F9 for the
>>>>>> field delimiters.
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
>>>>>> Graham Mayor - Word MVP
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My web site www.gmayor.com
>>>>>> Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
>>>>>> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bill Watkins wrote:
>>>>>>> Is there a way using the IF field to conditionally include a
>>>>>>> WordArt object?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks.
>
>

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