Capturing second header information

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I would like to “automatically” capture certain information found in the first page of formal business letters to be used in a “second” header starting on page 2 of multiple page formal business letters. I want the addressed person’s full name [full line], and the date of the letter. I add coding to provide the page x of y page numbers and three blank lines to create a margin between the header and the first line of the page’s text.
Thanks for your help.

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Hi
One way of achieving this would be to bookmark separately the entries in the Name & address blocks of the letter. I used the bookmark Names “Name” & “Address”.

In the header / footer of section 2 of the document use the ref field and the bookmark name

eg {ref Name}
{ref Address}

Insert a field with INSERT>Field or CTRL+F9

Hope this helps
Geof

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Hi Quantum,

This can be accomplished with a template, Fill-in fields, and a couple of cross-references:

– Create your template and insert two Fill-in fields. One for the Full Name and one for the Address.

If you are not familiar with Fill-in fields, they are input boxes that prompt for information when a new document is created based on your template.

To create a Fill-in field:
* Go to Insert/Field and select Fill-in
* In the text box provided, type your text prompt in quotes. For example “Enter the recipient

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Probably the easiest way to do this is using ASK fields with REF fields in the second-page header/footer. You may want to download and explore the following tutorials:
ASK field tutorial and UserForm tutorial at
my Word download page (addbalance.com/word/download/).

You may also want to download the letterhead system from
my download page (addbalance.com/word/download/).

This may not be the best way to set up letterhead, but it is a way that works for me. It consists of modular components so that changes to a letterhead are reflected in all form documents created from then on while documents that were created earlier remain unchanged.

Hope this helps,

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Hi Charles,

Regarding your ASK example on your web site.

If I may ask, could you please either document or remove the code in the AutoOpen macro that changes the Tools/Options/Print “Update fields” and “Update Links” options?

I don’t know about others, but I like to know when a macro is altering my preferences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks!

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Yet another way to accomplish this is with StyleRef fields. These have a couple of advantages:
– you don’t need to use bookmarks
– the field content updates automatically

To set your letter up to take advantage of StyleRef fields, you’ll need a “Date” style to be applied to the paragraph with the date, and an “Addressee” style to be applied to the paragraph with the recipient’s name.

The simplest way to do this would be: select the paragraph with the date, then in the style window type “Date” and then Enter – a new style called “Date” will have been created and applied to the selected paragraph. Use the same process to create an Addressee style.

Go to the continuation page header, and where you want the date to appear, insert a StyleRef field.
You can do this by going to Insert>Field>Links and References, and selecting “StyleRef” from the list.

Before clicking on OK, click on the Options button, and then on the Styles tab. You will see a list of the styles available in that document. Select the “Date” style, then click on the Add to Field button. And then “OK” your way out of the dialogs.

Repeat this process similarly for the Addressee styleref field.

Any changes made thereafter, to the content of the date or addressee paragraphs, will automatically be reflected in the header fields, without the need to update them.

Gary

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Excellent idea Gary! Thank you.

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Thanks Charles.

What opened my eyes to the virtues of StyleRef fields was a template project where I needed to have the heading text for each new section repeated in the continuation headers – and to have this content automatically update as and when the text of the heading was changed – styleref fields really saved my, um, derriere.

The idea of using these for letters is something I can’t take credit for, as I originally read it elsewhere. Unfortunately I can’t recall where or when I did see it, so can’t provide the attribution that is due!

Gary

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One other thought . . .

In setting up these styles, it will be essential that they have an assigned different style for the next paragraph. (Although a character style can be used for this, most users have a lot of trouble switching character styles off.)

Also, if people have a tendency to edit from the beginning or middle of a line rather than the end of a line, you could run into problems.

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