Ideas for form document/template

[k1w1]

Hi,

Here's the scenario: I have a Network Documentation Manaul that we provide
when we set a network - all the system information - for the client.
Somewhere in the 20 to 25 page area. The basic layout of the document
remains the same for different clients, with just some adjustments where
necessary. What I'd like to be able to do would be to setup up some kind of
document along the lines of a mail merge where we could go and fill in a
spreadsheet, or whatever, and have that information go and "write" the
manual for us.
The difficulty I have is how can I handle things like putting data into
tables? Is it possible? Any ideas of something that will achieve what I want
to, if Word isn't capable?

Questions:
Can I do a merge involving table data? ie there might be data that would go
into a 2 X 8 table. All the data would be changing between jobs.
Can I merge bulletted lists, long lists?
Can I take an existing document and go through the various parts of the
document and convert appropriate sections to fields? ie every instance of
the clients name turn it into a field? Select a table of data and make it a
field?

Open to ideas and suggestions at this point.

Cheers,
Brent

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See the article "How to create a Userform" at:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm


--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Yes, you can do at least some of this with mailmerge. However, Word will not
be your data source. You'll need to use Excel or Access because Word won't
create a data source with that much data. Unless you are using this same
data for multiple documents, you are probably better off using a custom
dialog box (userform) as suggested by Doug Robbins. If you do this, make
sure you store the information not only in the body of your document, but
also in document variables or custom document properties. That way if you
need to change something, you can restart your userform with your current
information and just change what needs changing rather than re-enter all the
data each time one thing needs to be altered.

I regularly create customized documents for individual clients using
mailmerge. This sounds like it may be what you are trying to do. Normally
mailmerge is used to create the same document for multiple people/records at
once. I don't use it that way. Rather, I create data records about each
case/client and use it that to populate fields in different documents at
different stages of a case, one case at a time.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


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