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#1
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Report Creation
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 |
#2
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Report Creation
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 |
#3
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Report Creation
Word 2007
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#4
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Report Creation
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. |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
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Report Creation
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. |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
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Report Creation
I guess I'm showing my 'novice Word user' side.
The extra paragraphs were used to position text for the letterhead at the top, the report title in the middle of the page, and the document creator at the bottom. Is there a better way to position these blocks? "Beth Melton" wrote: "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/ |
#8
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
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Report Creation
To eliminate the extra hard returns, you might try adjusting space
before and after your style using the Space Before and Space After, which is found in the Page Layout Group. Or if you are modifying a style, it can be found in the Paragraph dialog box. -- Dawn Crosier Microsoft MVP "Education Lasts a Lifetime" This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn as well. "David Robinson" wrote in message : I guess I'm showing my 'novice Word user' side. The extra paragraphs were used to position text for the letterhead at the top, the report title in the middle of the page, and the document creator at the bottom. Is there a better way to position these blocks? No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.17/1253 - Release Date: 1/31/2008 9:09 AM |
#9
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Report Creation
Ah! I was thinking they were used as "empty lines" for typing. If you
examine the built-in Cover Pages you'll find they use a combination of Word tables and text boxes. I tend to use a borderless Word table for these types of layouts. I find a borderless Word table lends itself to more precise positioning and control over the layout. Additionally, since you are using a Title and document creator, the built-in Cover Pages also use bound Document Property fields for data such as the Title and the document creator. When you enter data in these controls they also update the File Properties and it makes it easy to repeat information in other areas of the document since changing it in one control will automatically update the others. (For example if you want to add the Report Title to the header or footer). If that's something you are interested in these can be found on the Insert tab under Quick Parts/Document Property. Also, if you want to use the other types of controls (called Content Controls) you see used in the built-in Cover Pages, such as the Calendar control, the "Type here" controls, drop down lists, etc these are found on the Developers tab. This tab is turned off by default so if you don't see it, click the Office Button, click Word Options, and in the Popular section, select "Show Developer tab in the Ribbon". 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 ... I guess I'm showing my 'novice Word user' side. The extra paragraphs were used to position text for the letterhead at the top, the report title in the middle of the page, and the document creator at the bottom. Is there a better way to position these blocks? "Beth Melton" wrote: 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. |
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