TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Keith Hansen wondered: <<I inherited some MS Word files from my
predecessor. These files are plagued with dozens of the following
error messages, which show up in headers and the main text of the
document: "Error! Bookmark not defined." ... 1. Why do they show up?>>
Because a bookmark is not defined. <gdrlh> Seriously? What this most
likely means is that somewhere, a field (probably a cross-reference
or hyperlink) is pointing to a bookmark that is no longer present.
Perhaps it got deleted during revision, or perhaps it points towards
a file on your predecessor's hard disk that isn't present on your
hard disk.
<<2. How can I make them go away and stay away?>>
Look for all the crossrefs and hyperlinks in the document, and see
which one is broken. There's probably an easier way to do this, but I
didn't see any "fix broken links" command. (I'm using an older
version of Word, so see if anyone using the current versions can help.)
In the meantime, one way is the following: Set your Options/
Preferences (View tab) to show field codes, which will look like {a
typical field code} after you close the dialog. Next, open the list
of bookmarks (Insert --> Bookmark) and make note of all the bookmarks
in the file. You can now search for fields (in the "find what" field
of the search dialog, type ^d, which is the shortcut for fields). For
each field, check whether it defines a link to a bookmark and if so,
whether the bookmark is still present in the file. If not, either add
that bookmark, update the field to point to the correct bookmark, or
delete the field.
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include single source authoring, team authoring,
Web-based technology, and PDF output. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
