Auto-Fill Templates

[balti318]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel Hello Everyone,

I'm new to using Word & Excel and I'm not very technically savvy at all. But I do need to make a master template that when I fill in the fields (i.e. Name, address, Date of Birth, etc...) it Auto-Fills those fields into corresponding fields in a set of documents about 30 pages long.

Is this feasible on Word or Excel? or will I have to utilize both??

Someone please advise on how to go about this, for I am in dire need of assistance. Thank You!

Ariel B

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Hi Ariel:

The issue you have is not "making the template". The issue is "preventing
your co-workers from destroying it"

You have two good ways to do this: DocumentProperty fields and
Cross-Reference fields. Microsoft has been too lazy to put either of them
in the Help, so you will need to look them up online.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051861451033.aspx?pid=CH06104725103
3

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?assetid=HP051861391033&QueryID
=KeZH4pnfl0&respos=2&rt=2&pid=CH061047291033

There are two ways to do this:

* You can type the details the first time inside bookmarks

* You can enter the details in Document Properties.

Typing into bookmarks is perhaps easier for unskilled users, because they
can "just type". However, you have to carefully school them in how to type
without damaging the bookmarks.

You encase each piece of data in a Bookmark. For example, you have a
bookmark for "Name". The user enters "Joe Bloggs" taking care to enter it
within the bookmark boundaries (deleting what appears there).

In the rest of the document, you have Cross References that call in whatever
text appears in the bookmark. Insert cross-references with Insert>Cross-
Reference... And change the Type to "Bookmark". You can have an unlimited
number of cross-references pointing at the same bookmark.

You must then teach the user a) to remember to Update All Fields in the
document when they have entered the text in the bookmarks, and b) Make sure
they do not type over either the bookmarks or the cross-references.

To do this, you have to train the users to turn on their non-printing
characters and enable Bookmarks and Field Shading in their
Word>Preferences>View...

If they won't do that, they will break the bookmarks. The exposure is that
IF they break the bookmarks, you will send a document to a new customer with
the old customer's details still in the text.

Using Document Properties is a little more robust: they can't
unintentionally break the document properties. But then you have to teach
the users to enter the document properties: using File>Properties>Custom...

Then you can use a series of "DOCUMENTPROPERTY" fields in the body of the
document. You still have to train the users to update all fields in the
document when they have entered the properties. When they do, the text in
each DOCUMENTPROPERTY field will be replaced with the content of the
File>Property.

Again, if they forget, you will get wrong information going out. And if
they just type over the fields, they will break the DOCUMENTPROPERTY fields.
Which means that in some places the name will be right, and in other places
it will be wrong.

With either method, one constraint you have is that the information from the
fields can exist in only ONE document, so your other 30 pages must all be
part of the same document or it won't work.

One alternative to populating bookmarks is to add Form Fields. There's a
"getting started" article here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894495

A Text form field will populate a nominated bookmark for you. The downside
is that you must protect the document for "Forms" to get it to work, which
means you cannot change other parts of the text.

Tell us more about what you are intending to do and we can be a lot more
helpful

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel Hello
Everyone,

I'm new to using Word & Excel and I'm not very technically savvy at all. But I
do need to make a master template that when I fill in the fields (i.e. Name,
address, Date of Birth, etc...) it Auto-Fills those fields into corresponding
fields in a set of documents about 30 pages long.

Is this feasible on Word or Excel? or will I have to utilize both??

Someone please advise on how to go about this, for I am in dire need of
assistance. Thank You!

Ariel B

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Hi John,

I smell the possibility for a nice add-in here..

-Jim

 

[balti318]

Hello John & Jim,

Thanks for the input, I will try these steps today and see how it goes.

The one constraint of everything having to be on the same document is somewhat of an obstacle. Because there are at least 8-10 separate documents that the master template must be cross referenced to... would you advise to merge these docs into one, apply the cross-reference, and then go in and separate them again? or is there any other way to fill out the master template and have it apply to separate word docs? without having to apply a separate master template to each individual document. This would expedite the paperwork process by leaps and bounds.

I do greatly appreciate the input. Thanks!!

Ariel B

 

[CyberTaz]

If I understand what you are asking there is no way to do it in the way you
describe... A document can't be caused to 'send' content to other documents.

What you can do is construct those other documents with the appropriate
links to what you're calling the "master". Those documents will then update
based on 'reading from' the main document. If that's the type of thing
you're looking for it would help if you'd more fully & accurately describe
what you want to do... but that can be a rather complicated & involved
project whose results can be fragile.

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Hi Ariel:

Bob is quite correct, Word simply cannot send content to other documents.
But Excel can. How important is the "formatting" for this process?

If your formatting needs are not great, then have a look at Excel. Excel
will do this easily and quickly. Sucking in data from other files is
something Excel does as part of the way it sees the world.

Otherwise, "yes", you are going to have to place all 30 pages in the one
document, update all the fields, AND THEN you must lock the field results by
converting the fields to text (command + shift + F9) before you split the
documents apart, so you ensure that the field results cannot change during
subsequent editing.

Hope this helps

Hello John & Jim,

Thanks for the input, I will try these steps today and see how it goes.

The one constraint of everything having to be on the same document is somewhat
of an obstacle. Because there are at least 8-10 separate documents that the
master template must be cross referenced to... would you advise to merge these
docs into one, apply the cross-reference, and then go in and separate them
again? or is there any other way to fill out the master template and have it
apply to separate word docs? without having to apply a separate master
template to each individual document. This would expedite the paperwork
process by leaps and bounds.

I do greatly appreciate the input. Thanks!!

Ariel B

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Hi Jim:

There have been many attempts to do this over the years. The various legal
practice management packages all contain a function to feed client details
into the thousands of forms and precedents that the legal profession uses.

Most of them use the "document properties and fields" mechanism I discussed
with the original poster. They all suffer the problem that if an unskilled
user jumps into the document to make a quick change, they can overwrite one
of the fields and produce a version control disaster.

I am waiting for Mac Office to get proper XML abilities. This really is a
job for XML: one of the things it is good at

Cheers

Hi John,

I smell the possibility for a nice add-in here..

-Jim

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]