[David Robinson]

Hello,

I just changed jobs from grocery store manager to 8th grade English teacher.
I am not unfamiliar with basic use of Word but I want to streamline some
things.

The teachers have to generate 5 different types of reports. Each report has
4-5 sections that are the same every time:
- A header
- Table of contents
- Description of the course or program (optional)
- Grade, effort, change in status table
- Parental acceptance and signature area

It also has areas that each teacher may want to add that are standard or
unique to the teacher's requirements. In total this means there may be
anywhere from 5-12 sections in each report. Today there reports are nearly
all generated manually by cut & paste from old versions. This creates a
crazy mishmash which each teacher then has to sort out to make some
semblance of a cohesive document. It gets even harder to get these done
when a new teacher comes along - like me.

So what I want to do is create some sort of standardized report generation
system. I don't even know if Word is the right place to do this but since
the existing docs are all in Word already it seems like the right place to
start. Ideally I'd like to have all of the report components stuffed into a
single doc. When a teacher opens the doc should be able to easily identify
the sections that they need and don't need. I've tried simply putting them
together as one long doc but this makes section removal pretty tedious.
What I'd really like is a way to have a shorthand list of sections that the
teachers could just select the sections they want and save that into their
new report.

I think....

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
Dave

[Beth Melton]

What version of Word are you using?

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"David Robinson" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I just changed jobs from grocery store manager to 8th grade English
teacher.
I am not unfamiliar with basic use of Word but I want to streamline some
things.

The teachers have to generate 5 different types of reports. Each report
has
4-5 sections that are the same every time:
- A header
- Table of contents
- Description of the course or program (optional)
- Grade, effort, change in status table
- Parental acceptance and signature area

It also has areas that each teacher may want to add that are standard or
unique to the teacher's requirements. In total this means there may be
anywhere from 5-12 sections in each report. Today there reports are
nearly
all generated manually by cut & paste from old versions. This creates a
crazy mishmash which each teacher then has to sort out to make some
semblance of a cohesive document. It gets even harder to get these done
when a new teacher comes along - like me.

So what I want to do is create some sort of standardized report generation
system. I don't even know if Word is the right place to do this but since
the existing docs are all in Word already it seems like the right place to
start. Ideally I'd like to have all of the report components stuffed into
a
single doc. When a teacher opens the doc should be able to easily
identify
the sections that they need and don't need. I've tried simply putting
them
together as one long doc but this makes section removal pretty tedious.
What I'd really like is a way to have a shorthand list of sections that
the
teachers could just select the sections they want and save that into their
new report.

I think....

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
Dave

[David Robinson]

Word 2007

[Beth Melton]

I think you can accomplish what you are looking for by creating a template
for the report and create a Building Block for each additional section which
can be quickly inserted into new documents, multiple times if necessary. If
you aren't familiar with Building Blocks, take a look at the Insert tab and
the Cover Page, Header, Footer galleries. The Cover Page gallery might be
more like what you have in mind.

When you create your Building Blocks, save them in your template and
associate them with a Custom Gallery. That way you can add the gallery to
the Quick Access Toolbar for quick insertion. Note that if you elect to
modify the Quick Access Toolbar for the template, make sure you select your
template when making the customizations. (If you need help with this, post
back and let us know.)

For more on Building Blocks take a look at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/he...341311033.aspx

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"David Robinson" wrote in message
...
Word 2007

I just changed jobs from grocery store manager to 8th grade English teacher.
I am not unfamiliar with basic use of Word but I want to streamline some
things.

The teachers have to generate 5 different types of reports. Each report has
4-5 sections that are the same every time:
- A header
- Table of contents
- Description of the course or program (optional)
- Grade, effort, change in status table
- Parental acceptance and signature area

It also has areas that each teacher may want to add that are standard or
unique to the teacher's requirements. In total this means there may be
anywhere from 5-12 sections in each report. Today there reports are nearly
all generated manually by cut & paste from old versions. This creates a
crazy mishmash which each teacher then has to sort out to make some
semblance of a cohesive document. It gets even harder to get these done
when a new teacher comes along - like me.

So what I want to do is create some sort of standardized report generation
system. I don't even know if Word is the right place to do this but since
the existing docs are all in Word already it seems like the right place to
start. Ideally I'd like to have all of the report components stuffed into a
single doc. When a teacher opens the doc should be able to easily identify
the sections that they need and don't need. I've tried simply putting them
together as one long doc but this makes section removal pretty tedious.
What I'd really like is a way to have a shorthand list of sections that the
teachers could just select the sections they want and save that into their
new report.

[David Robinson[_2_]]

That looks like exactly what I want. I've managed to put a couple blocks
together pretty quickly and they appear to work as advertised. Naturally
I've run into a couple questions though:

1. I built a Cover Page block and set it to insert all of the content on a
new page. The content of the cover page uses one entire page. When I insert
it from the Building Block gallery it changes the line spacing. I have a
bunch of blank lines set to Arial-10 and single spaced but when it's inserted
from the gallery it ends up double spacing the lines.

2. Is there some way to enfore an order for any given section? I see that
the Cover Page can be forced to insert at the beginning. I'd like to be able
to force other sections to only appear either before or after other sections.

Thanks for the help. I can already see parts of this coming together.

David

"Teaching is a lifelong everyone-to-everyone endeavour."


"Beth Melton" wrote:

I think you can accomplish what you are looking for by creating a template
for the report and create a Building Block for each additional section which
can be quickly inserted into new documents, multiple times if necessary. If
you aren't familiar with Building Blocks, take a look at the Insert tab and
the Cover Page, Header, Footer galleries. The Cover Page gallery might be
more like what you have in mind.

When you create your Building Blocks, save them in your template and
associate them with a Custom Gallery. That way you can add the gallery to
the Quick Access Toolbar for quick insertion. Note that if you elect to
modify the Quick Access Toolbar for the template, make sure you select your
template when making the customizations. (If you need help with this, post
back and let us know.)

For more on Building Blocks take a look at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/he...341311033.aspx

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"David Robinson" wrote in message
...
Word 2007

I just changed jobs from grocery store manager to 8th grade English teacher.
I am not unfamiliar with basic use of Word but I want to streamline some
things.

The teachers have to generate 5 different types of reports. Each report has
4-5 sections that are the same every time:
- A header
- Table of contents
- Description of the course or program (optional)
- Grade, effort, change in status table
- Parental acceptance and signature area

It also has areas that each teacher may want to add that are standard or
unique to the teacher's requirements. In total this means there may be
anywhere from 5-12 sections in each report. Today there reports are nearly
all generated manually by cut & paste from old versions. This creates a
crazy mishmash which each teacher then has to sort out to make some
semblance of a cohesive document. It gets even harder to get these done
when a new teacher comes along - like me.

So what I want to do is create some sort of standardized report generation
system. I don't even know if Word is the right place to do this but since
the existing docs are all in Word already it seems like the right place to
start. Ideally I'd like to have all of the report components stuffed into a
single doc. When a teacher opens the doc should be able to easily identify
the sections that they need and don't need. I've tried simply putting them
together as one long doc but this makes section removal pretty tedious.
What I'd really like is a way to have a shorthand list of sections that the
teachers could just select the sections they want and save that into their
new report.

[Beth Melton]

"David Robinson" David wrote in message
...
That looks like exactly what I want. I've managed to put a couple blocks
together pretty quickly and they appear to work as advertised. Naturally
I've run into a couple questions though:

1. I built a Cover Page block and set it to insert all of the content on
a
new page. The content of the cover page uses one entire page.

Unless you want to insert the Building Block as the first page then you
don't want to use the Cover Page gallery for your custom Building Blocks.
Granted, if you right-click a thumbnail in the gallery you are presented
with other insertion options but those are frequently overlooked. What I
would do is add them to one of the Custom galleries available, such as
Custom 1. Then you can add the Custom 1 Building Blocks gallery to the Quick
Access Toolbar (for only the template, not all documents) to make them
accessible.

When I insert
it from the Building Block gallery it changes the line spacing. I have a
bunch of blank lines set to Arial-10 and single spaced but when it's
inserted
from the gallery it ends up double spacing the lines.

I'm not sure why you are adding empty paragraphs, but it sounds like you
need to change your Document Defaults if you want single spaced lines and no
space before/after the paragraph. For this, on the Home tab, click the
dialog box launcher in the Paragraph group, make your spacing changes, then
click the Default button at the bottom. Note you want to make sure your
template is open so the defaults are applied to your template and not your
Normal template.

2. Is there some way to enfore an order for any given section? I see that
the Cover Page can be forced to insert at the beginning. I'd like to be
able
to force other sections to only appear either before or after other
sections.


Only the Cover Page gallery includes the ability to insert the Building
Block as the first page. Unless you right-click a Building Block thumbnail
and select an insertion method from the options provided they will be
inserted at the insertion point.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/