[p4] Embedded changelist # or file rev# in Word doc?

[Jay Glanville]

> Hi perforce-user.
> 
> We've been embedding changelist #s in software builds, to 
> great effect.
> Now, we're looking at our documents we put in Perforce.  Certain types
> of living documents will get printed out, perused by various people in
> various locations, and have comments scribbled on with pens, and
> returned to the original owner.  There's also a variable 
> latency in this
> whole thing, so some guy who got the doc might be scribbling on a
> version that's 2 weeks old by the time it gets back to the author.
> 
> So we need some version # on the document, but as we all 
> know, manually
> updated version #s is an error-prone process.  What would be very cool
> is if the Perforce changelist # was available as a field to a 
> Word doc,
> then this could put put on the cover page or footer, such that any
> normal field update would go and put the changelist # in the doc.
> 
> I don't see this feature in P4OFC, (I'm not even sure if Word plugins
> can provide custom fields), does anyone have any suggestions about how
> to accomplish this?

Alex, I don't have high-hopes for what you're looking for.  In essence,
what you're looking for is keyword replacement.  Unfortunately, that's
not available for binary files, ie: word documents.

I was with a shop in the past that used FrameMaker+SGML as their editor,
and stored their documents as SGML, which is a text format.  They were
then able to use keyword replacement from their SCM to do what you're
looking for.

In answer to your other question, yes Word does have custom fields, but
I don't know if the plugins provide access to these fields.  For word
2002, go to Files -> Properties, and select the tab Custom.

JDG

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Jay Dickon Glanville