1) Is there a switch or other devise to take the field {middle_name} and
return only the first letter? I have created a new field in Access
that does
this, and I can just merge that, but I want to know if WORD is capable of
doing it instead.

Word's "Field language" doesn't give you any facilities that help, but
with an Access data source you can either define a query in Access, or
use Word VBA to connect to Access with a suitable query, both of which
avoid having to create and maintain an extra field in an Access table,
if that is your concern.

2) I have an outline with the number format “First: Second: etc”.
I also
have a cross-reference in the document to those numbers. Is there a
way to
have the result not include the colon? ie. print all except the last
character “:”

if it's in the context of a merge, then the problem is that the REF
fields used to insert references are destroyed during a merge.

If it has nothing to do with a merge, then you could consider using
sequencing built using SEQ fields, e.g.

{ QUOTE "{ SEQ x \*ordtext }:" }

(e.g. with a tab character after the colon), then for those paragraphs
that you want to reference, decide on a name, e.g. "myref", then put the
following in the referenced paragraph:

{ SEQ x \c \*ordtext \h }

and use

{ REF myref } where you want to put the reference.

The sequencing is obviously less automatic, but the way REFerences to
sequenced items work is not particularly automatic anyway and there is
something to be said for naming your own reference points rather than
relying on the arbitrary references generated by Word.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 09/04/2010 20:33, Mikk wrote:

Two questions on returning only part of a field;
1) Is there a switch or other devise to take the field {middle_name} and
return only the first letter? I have created a new field in Access that does
this, and I can just merge that, but I want to know if WORD is capable of
doing it instead.

2) I have an outline with the number format “First: Second: etc”. I also
have a cross-reference in the document to those numbers. Is there a way to
have the result not include the colon? ie. print all except the last
character “:”