Page a Day Diary

[philterrett]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) I would like to create a page a day diary in word without having to type the date into 365 pages myself. Any ideas how to autogenerate the pages?

Phil

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello Phil,

I would like to create a page a day diary in word without having to type the
date into 365 pages myself. Any ideas how to autogenerate the pages?

How do you want each page to look - what do you
want to see on each page? Lines? A page number?
The date of that day?

Would be nice to get some details, so we can direct you
to the best solution.

Jeff

 

[philterrett]

Hi Jeff - I'd like the date at the top of each page.

Regards

Phil

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello again, Phil,

Hi Jeff - I'd like the date at the top of each page.

If you were using Excel, this would be rather easy -
just reference the previous page's date, and add one.
It's quite easy to create a list of dates from January 1 to
December 31 this way.

However, the question is whether the same thing
can be done in Word. I looked into it quite a bit this evening,
and came to the conclusion that the best way to do this is
by using AppleScript.
For instance, you would start off in Excel by creating a list of
dates. Your AppleScript would index the first date entry in
Excel, copy it to the clipboard, paste it into Word, insert
a page break, return to the Excel sheet, index the next cell,
and then loop back to the beginning, reiterating this
364 times to create a page for each day of the year.
That's one possible method.

I experimented with using Automator for this, which will
_almost_ get you there, but I couldn't get the variable to
work correctly (doi). Someone else with more knowledge
might do better.

How you would accomplish this in AppleScript terms is
likewise a bit beyond my lacking knowledge level right now,
but hopefully someone else here would be able to fill
in the blanks. The workflow itself is pretty straightforward -
it's really just a matter of translating it into AppleScript
terms.

Jeff

 

[philterrett]

Wow, thanks for looking at this for me Jeff - very much appreciated but I hadn't thought it would be so complicated.

I'll have a think about other ways to do this - wouldn't have thought setting up a 365 page document with the date at the top of each page would be a problem, ho-hum.

Regards

Phil

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello Phil,

I'll have a think about other ways to do this - wouldn't have thought setting
up a 365 page document with the date at the top of each page would be a
problem, ho-hum.

Actually, setting up a 365-page document with the
date at the top _isn't_ a problem. Headers can contain
today's date, and that part is easy enough to set up.
It's making the date sequential for 365 days of the year
that's the big hurdle to overcome in this case.

As I mentioned, it's pretty easy to do in Excel with some
simple math. But in your case, you want to do it in Word;
and you want to have one page for each day of the year,
and have the dates appear automatically
in sequence. That requires some kind of internal math and
document automation, which is not Word's forté (especially
without AppleScript or VBA).

On the other hand, if you select the Insert - Field command
in Word, you'll find a category called "Document Automation".
Word's help content is incredibly skimpy on this point and
will be of little use, but there's a very detailed document
at www.techsupportalert.com/pdf/e1182.pdf that you could
have a look at for some tips on how to use field codes
to perhaps achieve the result you're looking for without
AppleScript. (The article applies to Word for Windows, but
the basics are essentially the same in Word for Mac.)
This is a rather advanced feature, so don't be discouraged
if you can't figure it all out at once. I never use the
custom field codes or variables in the fields for Word,
just the basic ones like page numbers, document titles
and so on, so honestly, it's a bit beyond me at present.
(If the documentation was better, I would get into it,
but Microsoft provides very little help here.)

There's another web page called "Insert a date other than
today's date" (http://www.gmayor.com/insert_a_date_other_than_today.htm)
that discusses this, but the field codes featured there are
incredibly complex.
It seems like there would be a simpler answer...

Also, as I wrote last time, Automator will _almost_
do the trick - you can create an Automator workflow to
insert pages and do that x number of times in succession.
If you can figure out how to increment the variable
and get it to work, you may be able to get by without
learning any AppleScript or field codes at all ;-)

Jeff

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Jeff and Phil,

it might actually be quite easy to do this if you combine the Excel
spreadsheet and the Word document via Word's Mail Merge Manager. You can
create the date list in Excel quite easily, and then set up a Word document
with Mail Merge Manager to have the date appear on each page. It should take
no longer than a couple of minutes to set this up. Phil, if this solution
sounds interesting to you and you need help the methods I have just
mentioned, post back.

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello Michel,

Hi Jeff and Phil,

it might actually be quite easy to do this if you combine the Excel
spreadsheet and the Word document via Word's Mail Merge Manager. You can
create the date list in Excel quite easily, and then set up a Word document
with Mail Merge Manager to have the date appear on each page. It should take
no longer than a couple of minutes to set this up. Phil, if this solution
sounds interesting to you and you need help the methods I have just
mentioned, post back.

I'd be very interested to see the results on this,
to see how it's done!

Jeff

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Jeff,

I'd be very interested to see the results on this,
to see how it's done!

I've just tried it, and it works quite well. If Phil wants me to, I will
create the diary file for him, and I will e-mail you the file, too. And if
Phil is not interested, I can always send you the file, with detailed
instructions.

 

[dow]

Hi Jeff and Phil,

it might actually be quite easy to do this if you combine the Excel
spreadsheet and the Word document via Word's Mail Merge Manager. You can
create the date list in Excel quite easily, and then set up a Word document
with Mail Merge Manager to have the date appear on each page. It should take
no longer than a couple of minutes to set this up. Phil, if this solution
sounds interesting to you and you need help the methods I have just
mentioned, post back.










--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP - Macintosh

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

Unless I'm missing something, there seems a much simpler way:
1. Generate the list of dates in Excel
2. Paste into Word
3. Use Find-and-Replace to add a page-break to each entry (and any
other text that needs to be on each page)

Dow

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello,

Unless I'm missing something, there seems a much simpler way:
1. Generate the list of dates in Excel
2. Paste into Word
3. Use Find-and-Replace to add a page-break to each entry (and any
other text that needs to be on each page)

Incredible! This is an extremely simple and elegant solution,
taking me all of five minutes to set up and complete.
Nice work!

I was working under the impression that page breaks
were something that you had to insert using the
Insert - Break - Page Break command. So I got tied up trying
to think of all of the ways to insert a page break automatically
while still incrementing the calendar date.

The only thing I would make sure to do in your flow above
is to Paste Special into Word as unformatted text -
otherwise, you get the Excel cells pasted in as table cells,
which looks rather unseemly.

Once again, impressive work and a very creative solution -
hope the OP is happy!

Jeff

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello Michel,

I've just tried it, and it works quite well. If Phil wants me to, I will
create the diary file for him, and I will e-mail you the file, too. And if
Phil is not interested, I can always send you the file, with detailed
instructions.

Actually, once I got home this evening, I tried fooling
around with the Mail Merge functionality, and it was
pretty straightforward. I got it to work!
This is actually a rather flexible function, isn't it - and
your solution was very creative. Thanks for sharing that -
I learned something new.

Jeff

 

[philterrett]

Hi Michael, yes please I'd love a copy of the file. My email is (e-mail address removed)

Regards

Phil

 

[philterrett]

Thanks again Michael