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Save numbered versions add-in
for Word 2007 & 2010 |
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Elsewhere on this web site
is a macro to produce numbered versions of a document. Feedback from a
user prompted me to develop an add-in that extends the concept to
produce a flexible means of numbering document versions. The add-in is
only loosely based on the aforementioned macro and produces documents
that are named differently from those named using that macro.
As with all
Word template based add-ins the template should be extracted from the
zip file to the Word Startup folder - defined in Word
Options > Advanced > File Locations > StartUp with Word
closed. When Word is started the template will load with Word. |
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When
revising the versioned document - open the LAST numbered version and use
the add-in function to save the document with a new name. DO NOT save
the document normally before using the add-in to provide a new version
number or you will defeat the concept of producing versions. |
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The add-in
adds a button group, illustrated and annotated below, to the add-ins tab of the
ribbon. |
| Save Numbered Versions |
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With the
document open on screen (whether or not it has already been saved) click
the Save Numbered Version button. The naming information is stored in
document variables. The first time you do this for a given document
sequence, the variables will not be present. The function will therefore
prompt for the document type. This can be one of the four pre-defined
types of any other type entered into the dialog. The rest of the
variables will be defined from the document filename and the
current date.
If the
document has not previously been saved, you will be prompted to first
save the document. |
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The document is saved, then resaved with the new dated filename. The
originally named document is removed leaving only version 1 of the
document, and the document name and path are added to the Word title bar
as shown below. Subsequent saves will add the version numbers as shown
in the second of the following illustrations.
In the case of the 'Version' document naming type, the naming type is not
included in the name of the first numbered item, as shown in the first of
the following illustrations. However with all other types the naming
type is included in version 1 as shown in the third illustration below.
The date is added to the start of the filename in the format yyyy-mm-dd
to take advantage of the filename sorting of Windows. |
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Under normal circumstances a document designated 'Final' should be just
that - 'Final' - but the Save Numbered Version tool does allow for
having sequentially numbered final documents, but the number can easily
be reset using the Change Filename tool.
In the following example the document numbering has reached number 5 and
the next save it to be the final version of the document. Instead of
clicking 'Save Numbered Version', click instead 'Change Filename'. The
following dialog opens showing the current status of the document
filename and its associated variables. |
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Change the document type from the dropdown list to Final (as shown in
the first of the following illustrations) and note the change to the
filename in the New Filename window and the alert message above (as
shown in the second of the following illustrations). |
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Click 'Change document name' to save the document with the new name.
Note that for 'Final' and 'Signature' document types it is not possible
to change the version number from 1 from this dialog, but you may
increment the number by using the Save Numbered Version tool. |
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Note: |
Any of the variables stored in the document may be edited using the
Bookmarks and Variables etc.
editor which you can also download from this site. |
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The other two buttons the add-in provides are for user information and
document maintenance. The first is the add variables button. This will
add the required variables to a document which for whatever reason
doesn't have them. Its main use is to enable a document that has been
manually named in the same format that this add-in produces to be used
with the save numbered version tool and maintain the document type and
version numbering. The function is error trapped and will warn if the
document already has the key variables. If the filename already includes
a document type, the document type dropdown is disabled to prevent a
filename from having two conflicting document types included in the
filenames the save numbered version function would create. |
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Finally there is the 'Info' button, which produces the following dialog: |
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Click 'Important User
Information' for a disclaimer. |
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Now download the add-in |
