FAQs
Microsoft Word Add-in Issues

Microsoft Word Add-in Issues

1. Microsoft Word is asking me if I should enable pop-ups. Is this safe?

You may be asked if you would like to enable pop-ups within Office Online. It is safe to accept it, to allow for the use of docCentral.

2. Why is my placeholder not appearing on my Word document?

There may be a few causes why your placeholder is not appearing in your Word document:

  • Sometimes, placeholders might take a while to be generated after clicking "Set Condition" or "Insert". This is especially true for larger documents with hundreds of pages. Do be patient and let the Word Add-in generate the placeholders for you.
  • In other cases, clicking your cursor anywhere else within the document will cause some placeholders to load immediately.

3. I am unable to add placeholders to the text boxes/text inside shapes in my document. What can I do?

Currently, Word Online does not natively support some local Microsoft Word components, like text boxes, shapes with text and other formatting options. When you upload your document to Word Online, you may have noticed that documents with these components may look different or misaligned. Since Word Online does not support these functionalities currently, there is a workaround to this situation.

Step 1

Open your document with a local copy of Microsoft Word first.

Step 2

After doing so, you will have to toggle the "Autosave" button at the top left hand corner of your Word application. You will be prompted to save it to your SharePoint/OneDrive folder.

Toggling Autosave on

Step 3

In your SharePoint/OneDrive, look out for the file that is uploaded through this method. It should usually be under "My Files". Open the file, and run the docCentral add-in like normal.

For placeholders to be put into unsupported components, put the placeholder outside that area in your online copy of Word, and drag the placeholder from your local copy of Word (after it has updated in real time) into the intended location of that placeholder. docCentral will populate the placeholder as normal when you generate the document.

Example of placeholder outside unsupported components in Word Online (the text box in this case):

Word Online unsupported component - put placeholder outside

What you would see when transitioning back to the local copy of Word:

Word locally - unsupported component - put placeholder outside

Step 4

All you have to do now is just to drag/cut and paste the relevant placeholder to within the text box as shown below:

Word locally formatted placeholder

With that, you are able to save this file, and upload it to docCentral. docCentral will then be able to fill up the relevant placeholders you require!

4. Why is my text not displayed when I use the IF placeholder?

You may have accidentally chosen the “Hidden” option of the IF placeholder. To display text when a condition is selected in the corresponding FormSG form, choose the “Displayed” option.

5. Only my formula placeholders are not working. Why?

You may have entered a erroneous formula (possibly arithmetic errors). Check that your formula is correct and try again.

Ensure that all variables used in the formula placeholder are of the number/decimal placeholder.