I put {ASK Age "How old are you?"} in the HEADER of a
document and {REF Age} immediately FOLLOWING the ASK field
bookmark indicator and the REF field results will not
display. Odd.

I don't get this here (Word 2003).

I put {ASK Age "How old are you?"} in the HEADER of a
document and {REF Age} immediately PRECEEDING the ASK
field bookmark indicator and the REF field results will
display but only after I fire the prompt (F9) and respond
a second time. Very odd.

Broadly speaking, this is because Word executes the field codes in the
sequence they appear in the text. If you select the whole header and
press F9, when Word tries to execute the REF field, no Age bookmark
exists yet. Word will typically display "Error! Reference source not
found." Then WOrd will execute the ASK field, which will result in the
creation of the ASK bookmark. Word won't go back and re-execute the REF
field. In fact, it doesn't even execute it when you print with the
Print|Update Fields option set. But if you carefully select the REF
field and press F9, you should see Word insert the value you specified
when you responded to the ASK.

Peter Jamieson