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Office 365 Word for Mac 2016: cannot unlock fields in captions for them to auto-update

Anonymous
2017-10-07T02:29:28+00:00

Hello-

I have a Word doc with many captions for both tables and figures. I recently discovered that I can lock caption field codes, which was great b/c sometimes the order got reversed when there was more than one figure on a page. (Maybe that had to do with where the caption was originally anchored?) 

Anyhoo, I tried unlocking a few different fields that I had locked using shift-control-F11. On my mac, I got a ding sound -- I believe this means my input didn't get input? 

I selected all and hit F9. Some fields did indeed update.

Most of the captions have been grouped with their corresponding images/charts. I ungrouped a few instances but this didn't change anything either.

Please advise, oh hive mind!

Thanks, Josh

[mid-2012 MacBook Pro, Office 365 education edition]

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-10-07T11:16:43+00:00

On Mac, the default key combinations for

 - "Lock Fields" are command-3 and command-F11 

 - "Unlock Fields" are command-4 and command-shift-F11

Remember that on a Mac keyboard , "command" and "control" are different keys, and that depending on your keyboard settings in Mac OS ->Preferences..., you may need to use fn-command-F11 and fn-command-shift-F11.

It is true that Mac OS can sometimes reserve keystrokes for itself, in which case you can either try the command-3/command-4 key combinaitons, or assign a new one via

 a. click Tools->Customize keyboard...

 b. Select All Commands under "Categories"

 c. type LockFi in the search box on the right - that should leave LockFields and UnlockFields in the list.

 d. Select LockFields and check the keystrokes already assigned to it

 e. Click in "Press new keyboard shortcut" and click your own keystroke combination. Word should tell you if it is already assigned to another Word function.

 f. when you are happy with your choice, click the Assign button

 g. repeat d. to f., but for the UnlockFields command.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-10-08T09:57:05+00:00

    That's wonderful, thank you Peter for getting back to me with this timely help!

    -Josh

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