RevNum field Oddities

Question

If I insert a RevNum field into a doc, even before I save the doc, the field shows a "1" as the rev number (the number of times the doc has been saved), as shown:

The underlying actual field is:

If I save the doc (for the first time), close out of Word, and bring the doc back up and F9 to update the field, I'll get the same rev. number of 1, as I'd expect.

I then add a line of text, save the doc, close out of Word, bring the doc back up and F9 to update the field and the rev. number is incremented as I'd expect:

But, if I make NO changes now, just close out of Word, then bring the doc back up and F9 to update fields, I get"

The rev number is incremented, even though I made no changes to the doc!! I thought RevNum is the number of times the doc has been saved. Is this not so?

What on earth is going on?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Updating the field, even though it does not change, counts as a revision. If you do not save after that, and why would you, it will not change.

Answer 2

If you "save" a document that contains no changes (the Undo button is disabled), it does not actually save. You have to make some kind of change to make it save.

Answer 3

Thank you! However, the Description in the Field dialog when you select Revnum says that what it does is "insert the number of times the document has been saved."...not the number of times it's been changed. You could change it 50 times but if you didn't save it, the result shown by RevNum should not also change. Maybe the description should be that it's the number of times the document has been closed after any number of changes have been made.