Microsoft Word 2007 bookmark/cross reference

This one time I was working on form in Word 2007 and had to find a way to automatically copy content of field in to another field (replicate field content to multiple places). Had no idea how to do it and started googling. I found couple of articles explaining how to do it. These were people having the same problem I have, asking how to do this?!

While reading these articles, and later trying out, I realized I have totally misunderstood the concept of bookmarks and cross reference in Word 2007. Here is the thing:

It is as simple as placing a bookmark and adding a cross reference where it's needed. 


Whether it is a field or a part of the text, you can just add a bookmark to an object, give bookmark a name and use it afterwards wherever.

I really don't get pissed off about this kind of things, but this time I lost couple of hours figuring out how to make this field propagate it self. Among this articles I read were couple of those from Microsoft sites. I never understood why do they have to complicate things they made simple already?
There was this guy telling people they use Quick parts predefined objects and renaming them into whatever they need. Here is a song for you:

In general, rich text and plain text content controls just won't work with bookmarks and cross references. Here is an Microsoft support article on this issue http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2004464 I'm just not happy with these things, because fix it already! I had a similar problem with copy/paste bug in Word 2007 forms, and couldn't believe that this program had gone into use with this sort of a stupid bug.

Instead I use legacy forms. 

With legacy forms everything works like a charm, and here is how to make it work: 

1. Insert a text from field.
2. Double click the field OR right click/Properties
3. Enter default text and bookmark. You can add bookmarks through Insert/bookmarks too.
4. Check Calculate on exit (this one is important)

Now you can add as much cross reference as you wish. To do this go to Insert/Cross reference. Choose bookmark from reference type and select your bookmark from list.

Before your form can work you have to protect the document. To do this go to Developer tab/Protect Document/Restrict formatting and editing.

Set the password.

You are done! Keep in mind that these steps apply to drop down form fields and text too.