Field Shading is a helpful setting in Microsoft Word that allows users to see the fields in a document which have been automated by Smokeball.
This tool is especially helpful when working on precedents and other document types where automated field codes have been added.
How to show or hide field shading
1. Open Microsoft Word outside Smokeball and navigate to File > Options.
2. Click into Advanced and scroll down to the Show document content section.
- Next to "Field shading" select Always from the dropdown.
Press OK to save changes.
You may need to close and re-open Word for the changes save. - To switch the feature off, navigate to this section again and change the dropdown option to Never.
3. When opening up a document, you will now see the automated fields show up shaded (as seen below).
Alternative method to show or hide field shading
If the steps above don't resolve your issue, try adding the Form Field Shading option to your Word toolbar:
Open Microsoft Word (either from a Smokeball document or outside of Smokeball) and navigate to File > Options.
Select Quick Access Toolbar, then under the Choose commands from drop-down menu, choose All Commands.
Find Legacy Tools from the grey list on the left (it's in alphabetical order), then click on it. Click Add>> on the middle of the window.
- Click OK to save your changes.
When you wish to show or hide field shading in Word, click on the Briefcase with Tool icon on the Quick Access Toolbar at the top left-hand side of Word, then click on the Form Field Shading icon.