Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Tools to View Field Codes.

Tool to View Field Codes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 1, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

You know you can use the Field Codes check box on the View tab of the Options dialog box to control whether or not field codes are displayed in your document. You may even know that you can use Alt+F9 to switch between field codes and their results. However, what if you are mouse-bound, and want to accomplish the same task quickly without resorting to the keyboard?

You can add a tool to the Quick Access Toolbar that toggles between field codes and field results. To add such a tool, follow these steps:

Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
At the left of the dialog box click Customize (Word 2007) or Quick Access Toolbar (Word 2010 and later versions). (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Quick Access Toolbar area of the Word Options dialog box.

In the list of Categories, select Commands Not in the Ribbon.
Scroll through the long list of commands and select View Field Codes from the list.
Click Add. The View Field Codes command now appears on the right side of the dialog box.
Click on Close to dismiss the Word Options dialog box.

Now, click on the new icon to see your field coding. Click again, and the results of the field codes are instead displayed.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6080) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Tools to View Field Codes.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is 2 + 2?

2023-04-21 09:34:25

Allen

Sunny,

The Alt+F9 shortcut does still work in Word 365. I just tested it in Word 365 version 2303 build 16.0.16227.20202, and it toggles between the display of fields codes and field results, just like it always has.

Of course, the keyboard shortcut is not the focus of this tip. This tip talks about adding a toggling tool to the QAT.

-Allen

2023-04-21 04:24:59

Sunny Jamshedji

This does not display Field Codes in Word 365 like it did using Alt+F9 in older versions of the Word format. If you save files with .doc extension then you can use Alt+F9 to View Field Codes as you have outlined, but then you lose new version features. If you save them as .docx, then you can't use Alt+F9. I have an old document that has been moved and since Word does not use relative paths like it used to decades ago, if you move a document with image links to a different folder, you lose all the file references. I am trying to see which picture I was referring to by the filename, but can't see the filename, because I can't View Field Codes in .docx. You could see/edit these with .doc and View Field Codes, but not anymore. A lot of Catch 22s! Thanks Microsoft!

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