Ref or MERGEFORMAT in Documents

Summary: Seeing the text “Ref” or “MERGEFORMAT” in your Microsoft Word 2003 documents? Here’s a fix.

When you insert cross-references in your Microsoft Word 2003 documents, especially if the document is large and complex, there may be times where you review your document and the text “Ref” or “MERGEFORMAT” appears instead of the cross-reference. If this happens to you, just right-click on the text and choose “Toggle Field Codes”. If you wish, highlight the entire document, right-click it, and choose “Toggle Field Codes” to toggle displaying the “Ref” or “MERGEFORMAT” codes and the cross-references they represent.