Word Shows Field Codes Instead of Text: How to Fix

You open a report to check the footer and find { PAGE } sitting between the dashes. A cross-reference reads { REF _Ref44821936 \h }. The table of contents is one long line of { TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u }.

Nothing has been deleted. Word keeps two versions of each of those items — the instruction and the last result it calculated — and it is currently showing you the instruction. One keystroke usually puts it back.

What a field actually is

A page number, a date, a cross-reference, a citation, a table of contents, a merge field: none of these are typed text. Each is a field, and a field has two parts. The instruction sits in braces, with switches introduced by a backslash — \h makes a cross-reference a hyperlink, \* MERGEFORMAT preserves formatting. The cached result is a snapshot of what the field produced the last time it was calculated.

In the file those are paired markers in document.xml: fldCharType="begin", the instruction, separate, the result, end. Showing braces means Word is rendering the instruction instead of the result.

Three things cause that. The first is a display toggle pressed by accident — Alt+F9 is one key away from Alt+F8, the macro dialog, and people reach for function keys when a document misbehaves. The second is that the toggle state is saved inside the document, so a file saved with codes visible reopens that way on any machine; that is why the sender insists it looks fine. The third is different in kind: the field has no stored result at all, and no setting will conjure one.

Fix 1 — Toggle the display back

Press Alt+F9 in Word for Windows. That switches every field in the document between code and result. For a single field, click inside it and press Shift+F9. On Mac the shortcuts are Option+F9 and Shift+Option+F9.

Check headers, footers and text boxes separately: a field in a header lives in a different story, and a click in the body does not refresh it on screen.

If real numbers appear, save the file so the next person does not inherit the setting. If nothing changes, the toggle was not the cause.

Fix 2 — Change the option, not the view

Go to File → Options → Advanced, scroll to Show document content, and clear Show field codes instead of their values. In the same group, set Field shading to When selected — the grey background behind a page number is a separate, cosmetic setting that never prints.

On Mac: Word → Preferences → View → Field codes.

Then open File → Options → Display and tick Update fields before printing, which keeps numbering honest after edits. Word prints and exports what is on screen, so a PDF exported while codes are visible carries the codes. Check page one before sending it anywhere.

Fix 3 — Update the fields

Ctrl+A then F9 recalculates every field in the body. If the document has a table of contents, Word asks whether to update the whole table or only the page numbers; choose the page numbers, because a full update rebuilds the entries from heading styles and drops anything typed by hand.

Headers and footers sit outside that selection: click into the header, select its contents, press F9.

F9 also answers Error! Reference source not found., though there the target is gone — usually a bookmark deleted along with its paragraph. Re-insert the reference from References → Cross-reference rather than updating again.

Fix 4 — Check whether the field is locked

A field can be locked against exactly this treatment. Ctrl+F11 locks the selected field, Ctrl+Shift+F11 unlocks it. A locked field ignores F9 silently: no error, no prompt, the number just stays stale.

Press Shift+F9 inside the field to read its code; a lock usually shows up as a ! switch. Unlock a copy, not the master — templates lock date fields on purpose so a contract keeps its signing date.

Fix 5 — Fields that arrived without a result

This is the case that survives every fix above: the code is visible with the toggle off, F9 changes nothing, because there is no cached result inside the file.

Conversion produces it, not corruption. A .docx exported from Google Docs or Apple Pages often carries instructions whose result runs were never written. A PDF-to-Word conversion can leave the braces behind as ordinary characters. File-repair tools that rebuild the body sometimes keep the instruction and drop the result.

The test: click inside the braces and press Shift+F9. If the text behaves like ordinary characters, if you can select one brace on its own, then they are literal text — no setting converts them. Delete and retype, or insert a real field from Insert → Quick Parts → Field.

If the braces do toggle but the result stays empty, the instruction is intact and only the value is missing. Fields computed locally — PAGE, NUMPAGES, DATE, SEQ — come back with one F9. Fields that point somewhere — REF, HYPERLINK, MERGEFIELD — need their target to exist. Read the instruction, then restore the bookmark or file it names.

When the codes are the least of the problems

Two situations justify stopping.

If the instructions refer to bookmarks that are gone — sections deleted, comments resolved and cleared — updating produces a page of Error! Reference source not found. Rebuilding the cross-references is the honest fix, and it is typing work rather than repair work.

If the braces are selectable text and everything around them reads normally, the file is not damaged in any way a repair tool can reach. Our repair service would tell you that rather than take the job.

One different symptom with a different cause: page numbers fine, but the whole header band gone. That is covered in headers and footers disappeared.

FAQ

Is Ctrl+Shift+F9 the same as F9?

No, and the difference matters. F9 recalculates a field and keeps it a field. Ctrl+Shift+F9 unlinks it, converting the result to plain text and destroying the instruction, so the number stops updating forever. Useful when archiving a finished document, dangerous on anything still being edited — take a copy first.

Why does only the table of contents show codes?

A TOC is a single field spanning many paragraphs. If someone pressed Shift+F9 with the cursor inside it, only that field flipped, and the state persists with the file. Press Shift+F9 again inside the TOC, or select the whole table and press F9 to rebuild it.

Will the codes appear in a printed copy or a PDF?

Yes. Word renders fields exactly as displayed, so codes visible on screen are what the printer and the PDF exporter receive. Fix the display first, then export.