Suggestion for creating a document of just selected paragraphs

[bisquit9]

We currently use 2003, but will be moving to 2007 within the next few months.
We have a process where we use Autotext to type in a 4 character code (i.e.
BA01, BA02) which then generates a paragraph of standard boiler-plate text.
We have over 200 of these paragraphs.

I am tasked with coming up with a better way. Most staff, especially new
ones, can't easily memorize the codes. I am wondering if I can create some
kind of checklist where the user checks a box beside the desired paragraph,
and once all the desired boxes are checked, a "go" button or function key is
pressed, and the selections are copied into a new blank document. Something
like that.

Does anyone have ideas on how I can do this in Word, or if using a different
Office product might be better, or any other ideas for me?

Thanks so much.

Holly

 

[Jay Freedman]

We currently use 2003, but will be moving to 2007 within the next few months.
We have a process where we use Autotext to type in a 4 character code (i.e.
BA01, BA02) which then generates a paragraph of standard boiler-plate text.
We have over 200 of these paragraphs.

I am tasked with coming up with a better way. Most staff, especially new
ones, can't easily memorize the codes. I am wondering if I can create some
kind of checklist where the user checks a box beside the desired paragraph,
and once all the desired boxes are checked, a "go" button or function key is
pressed, and the selections are copied into a new blank document. Something
like that.

Does anyone have ideas on how I can do this in Word, or if using a different
Office product might be better, or any other ideas for me?

Thanks so much.

Holly

I'd suggest building a userform, which is a custom dialog (a short tutorial is
at http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm).

At worst you could put descriptive titles for all the pieces of boilerplate into
one list box, although 200 items in one list is pushing it a bit. If you can
separate them into three to five categories, that would be easier to use.

One of the options in setting up a list box is that you can have it display a
check box to the left of each item in the list, and the user can go through
checking just the ones that are wanted.

When the user clicks the OK button in the userform, macro code attached to it
can insert the AutoText entry associated with each checked item in the list box
(the list box will have a hidden column that contains the name of the AutoText
entry that corresponds to each description, so the user doesn't have to know the
names).

The difficult bit will be knowing in which order to insert the AutoText entries.
Do they always go in the same order? Possibly each one could be assigned an
index number, so they would be inserted in ascending order of their index
values.

If you need help with the programming, it would be best to post questions in
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.word.vba.userforms.