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Inserting Document Properties

As you create a document and throughout its life cycle much information about the document is tracked and stored in the PolicyTech™ database. You can access this information and have it appear within the content of the Microsoft^® Word or Excel^® document itself by inserting what are called property fields. For example, you could insert property fields to show the name of the document owner, the date the document is approved, and names of the departments the document affects. The contents of these fields automatically change as events occur that affect those document properties.

The instructions below explain how to insert a property field into a document. For details on each document property, see Appendix: Document Property Details.

Inserting Into a Word Document

In an Edit Document window, place the cursor where you want the document property field inserted.
Click Editor Tools.
Click Insert Properties, and then navigate to and click the information you want to insert.

Some fields that are inserted will immediately display the correct value, such as the document title, the document owner's name, or the current date. Other fields display the correct information only after certain events have occurred. For example, if you insert the Publication Date field, you will see "Not Approved Yet" as the field text until the document is approved, at which time the approval date will appear. Also keep in mind that some of a document's properties, such as its title or assigned approvers, are editable. If a property is changed in the Properties Wizard or in Preferences, that change will automatically be reflected in the corresponding inserted property field.

When you insert a field into a Word document, it looks like normal text, but a field is treated differently than normal text. For example, the document shown below includes the Business Title, Document Title, and Version Number fields in the header. One way to tell that these are fields is to place the cursor within the field text, which shades all of the field text (if the Word setting for Field shading is When selected). In the document below, the cursor is in the Document Title field.

Important: While the text of a property field is editable, we strongly recommend that you not edit field text, as whatever changes you make will be lost the next time the field is updated.

Changing the Field Shading Option

You can change the Field shading option in Word so that all inserted fields are always shaded, as shown below.

The way you access the Field shading option depends on your version of Word.

In Word 2010:

Click File, click Options, and then click Advanced.
Scroll down to the "Show document content" area.
In the Field shading list, click Always, and then click OK.

In Word 2007:

Click the Microsoft Office Button , click Word Options, and then click Advanced.
Scroll down to the Show document content area.
In the Field shading list, click Always, and then click OK (see screenshot in "Word 2010" section above).

In Word 2003:

Click Tools, and then click Options.
Click the View tab.
In the Show area, in the Field shading list, click Always.

Deleting a Property Field in a Word Document

To delete a property field you've inserted into a Word document, do one of the following:

Select the entire field, and then press Delete or Backspace.
Place the cursor immediately before the first letter in the property field text, press Delete to select the entire field, and then press Delete again to delete the field.
Place the cursor immediately after the last letter in the property field text, press Backspace to select the entire field, and then press Backspace again to delete the field.

Note: If you place the cursor anywhere inside the field instead of before or after the field, pressing Delete or Backspace will delete a character in the field text instead of selecting the field.

Inserting Into an Excel Document

In an Edit Document window, select the empty cell where you want the document property field inserted.

Important: A property field cannot be inserted into a spreadsheet cell that already contains information or that is being edited. Make sure that the cell you select is empty and that you are not in edit mode (that the cursor is not active in the Formula Bar or inside the cell).

Click Editor Tools.
Click Insert Properties, and then navigate to and click the information you want to insert.
If you see the prompt, "Warning: Using this feature with Excel will erase your undo history," do one of the following:

Click OK to erase the undo history and continue to insert the field.
Click Cancel to go back to editing the document without inserting the field.

Important: You will see the warning only once during an editing session, but inserting a field always erases the undo history. To avoid erasing information from the undo history that you might need later, we suggest you insert fields either as the first or last step of creating an Excel document.

When you insert a field into a Microsoft Excel document, it looks like normal text, but it is not. You can identify a document property field in Excel by clicking on a cell and then looking in the Formula Bar, or by double-clicking a cell to activate edit mode. A property field contains the following formula: =[field_name], where [field_name] is the name PolicyTech has assigned to this document property (Document_Title in the example below). Because an inserted property field contains a formula, you cannot edit the property field text in an Excel document.