Jack,

Thank you for your very thorough response, the suggestions you make are
somewhat familiar however they have exceeded my current comfort level. But
this is good. I enjoy learning more about the ways macros and VBA can help
me especially by automating tedious tasks. Im going to play around with
this and see what kind of results I get.

I really appreciate your response. Ill try to reply to or in this thread
again to let you know what type of issues I am having, it may not be today
and probably not until next week sometime when I have time to really do this,
so if you dont mind subscribe to the thread so you can see when I post
again.

Thank you & Best Regards.

David


"Jack" wrote:

My first reaction to your problem was to set up an Access database where you
could enter the project specific information. Then use this to generate the
forms or templates that you're currently creating by hand.

My next thought was to try using Mail Merge in some form. This is basically
a database connection without trying to learn Access. Access isn't that hard,
but can seem daunting if you haven't used it before.

Unfortunately the more I thought about how to implement a solution to your
problem the more I came back to VBA. I've used VBA for the past 5 years, and
have found it to be extremely helpful in creating automation tools within all
of the Office applications.

Since you have posted previously to this discussion group, I suspect you
have heard VBA as a solution before. And yes, I did see that you would like
to avoid it.

Let me try to offer some words which may have you reconsider this constraint
to the problem. Have you ever used macros in Word before?

When I teach other people about VBA, I always start them with Word Macros.
Try the following when you go to update one of your templates.
Open the source template (the one you're going to copy from and edit)
Select Tools - Macro - Record New Macro
(For this first macro, just accept the name. You can enter your one name,
but without spaces.)
Select [OK]

You'll see a new toolbar with a Stop icon and a Pause icon. Right now the
computer is learning to do all of the things you're doing. You may find some
of the capabilities non-functional. You may have to use the arrow keys to
move the insertion point or select commands from the menus. Don't worry about
making mistakes. Just correct them and move on. Yes, Word will record your
mistakes, but when you replay them it will happen so fast you won't notice
them.

After you have made some of the changes, like Save As and re-typing some
values, select the Stop icon. Now your macro is saved

If you want to see what your macro will do, select Tools - Macro - Macros...
You'll see a dialog box appear and in the list will be Macro1 (or whatever
you named it)

You can select it and Run it.

You'll see an exact playback of the macro. You may get prompts about
overwriting files that exist.

If you craft your macros well (which only comes with practice) you can
create some useful tools and not write a line of VBA.

However to get the sort of variability that you're looking for, I think you
may have to dive a bit further. But that is okay. You're well on your way.

Go back to the Macros dialog box. (Tools - Macro - Macros...) Now select
your macro and select Edit. A whole new program will open up (Visual Basic
Editor). You'll see ith the main window to the right the Visual Basic that
Word used to record your macro. Print a copy of this out. Now look through
it. Much of the specific words won't make sense. This is the syntax of VBA.
However, since you built the macro, you already know what it should do. You
will start to be able to see the VBA commands for the different things you
did to record your macro.

I'm afraid I may have lost you at this point. If you want to learn more
about this, post a reply and we can explore your specific problem in more
depth.
--
Jack Rumple


"DBD" wrote:

We use Word 2002 and create standard office and client correspondence forms
for each project, job, client. etc. And the process of setting up .dot
files for every form we use on a job is tedious, and I want to find a way to
automate this if possible, i.e. enter it in one place and have the other
documents pull the info from the fields where the info has been entered
entered.

We insert mulitple lines of project specific information in the Header,
Footer and in a tables that are in the the body of documents found on every
piece of correspondence that we issue for a project. So when setting up a
new job we have an employee go in and edit our standard .dot file to make a
project specific .dot file that is then opened and used to create the
documents for the necessary project correpondence. The problem is that we
use about 20 forms currently and are developing more as we need them so each
on has to be opened, unprotected, the info copied or typed into the
appropriate locations, the form protected again, then saved as a .dot file
for users to begin using. Setting up a job takes a while even using copy
paste, I want to help our business manager out who is usually asked to do
this task, as she has other more important responsibilities like (payroll,
billing and accounting) other than "data entry".

Is there some way we can enter all the info in once in a "master" specific
project information word docment that then is referenced using fields or ODBC
or something from every other document, or put another way can the individual
documents "farm" data from the master .dot file containing all the project's
information?

It seems like everytime I post a question here I get great and knowledgable
replies for the most part so I am sure this can be done, however I am afraid
it may be outside my abilities, possibly using VBA or some other code writing
which I am not skilled in.

Any help would be appreciated, but if there is a way to do it without VBA
that would be ideal.

Thank you.

David