Automated forms: Possible in Word?

[Jennifer]

Hi,

I often have to write up announcements about new hires, and I'd like
to create a template in Word to help automate the process.

What I'm hoping to do is to create a document that can be sent to HR.
The document will prompt the person with questions such as "First name
of new employee" "Last name of new employee" and "Title." Then Word
would enter the information in the appropriate part of the template
text. Certain information, such as last name, would appear more than
once in the text.

Am I explaining myself clearly? Does anyone know how I can go about
this? I have a feeling it should be possible, but I don't know how
exactly.

Thanks,
Jennifer

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)]

What you're looking for is what we call "Document Assembly". Here's a
whole bunch of resources on it that you'll probably find useful:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/showcase/documentcreation/default.mspx

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com
Author - The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5m3f5q

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The simplest way to do this if you are not a programmer is with MacroButton
NoMacro fields (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/UsingMacroButton.htm). These allow you
to create a field with a prompt such as <Click here and type first name of
employee>. When you click in the field, the entire field is selected and
replaced by whatever is typed. If you format the field with a unique
character style, you can use StyleRef fields to repeat that information
elsewhere in the document (see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/StyleRef.htm). You can skip from one
field to the next with F11.

Another approach is a protected form; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm and especially
the forms tutorials by Dian Chapman that this article links to. You can use
"First name of employee" as the default text for a form field, which will be
overwritten by data entered. Each form field has a built-in bookmark that
can be referenced with a Ref field (cross-reference) to repeat the data; see
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Repeating_Data.htm. To fill out a protected form,
you use Tab to advance from one form field to the next.

The most elegant way to approach this, as Greg points out in the just-cited
article, is a UserForm; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm. This creates a
wizard-like interface that allows users to enter all the data at one go and
then click a button to have it inserted in the document.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all these methods. MacroButton
fields are single-use; once you've typed over them, they're plain text.
This, however, has the advantage that the result is a perfectly ordinary
text document containing no form fields or macros. Protected forms are ideal
when all you need to do is enter carefully controlled data at specific
points, but they do prevent users from doing anything else, and, even in
unprotected sections, forms protection limits what you can do in a document.
Moreover, the result is a document that still contains fields that can be
changed or updated. The UserForm is very elegant but does require users to
enable macros.

No matter which approach you choose, the "document" should be created as a
template (*.dot file) and new documents based on it. If you are using Word
2007, this would be a *.dotx or *.dotm file (depending on whether or not it
contains macros), and if all parties are using Word 2007, that version also
offers a new type of form fields called "content controls."