MS Word problem 1

[chubby]

Is there anyway to set up MS Word in which my end user can select the paragraph that best fit his problem, then have MS Word paste that paragraph in with the rest of the document? I wanted to use a pulldown but there's not enough room to type in a whole paragraph. The only feature like this I can think of is when you Mail merge.

Help please!!!!!!

 

[tkral]

Write a series of Macros which simply type out each of the paragraphs that your client wants to use in his/her document. Then add menus to the main menu bar which drop down displaying the title of the paragraph (something meaningful to the client). The client can then choose the menu selection which fits the problem. A nice touch is to add Hot keys to the menu selections so that if the client has codified the problem in his/her mind an Alt+<key> can insert the paragraph without moving to the mouse.

Hope this helps

tkral

 

[ilses]

As a variation, consider using a bunch of AutoText entries in a (global) template to store the boilerplate text so your customer will not have to be into VBA to make changes. Pulling these into the document via a menu as suggested by tkral is very classy and popular with users.

HTH

ilses

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

I am not very familiar with Word VBA, but if someone can run with this approch, it might be a good solution...

Set up a Document with the assemblage of paragraphs you want to select from in a Table where Col 1 would have a brief description and Col2 would have the paragraphs you want to select from.

The ComboBox would use Col1 values and take the INdex from the user's selection and insert the associated paragraph. Skip,
metzgsk@voughtaircraft.com

 

[chubby]

Thanks for all the help guy's!!! I like tkral idea but ilses ideas seems easer and SkipVought, I wish I knew VBA I would run with your idea. Bottomline is I'm still lost on how to set all of this up!!!!!!!!!!

I'll read up on using autoText entries in a global template and using Macros. ilses, what is a template stored as the boilerplate text mean??? you guy's are taking way over My Head!!!!!

Still lost!!!!

 

[Storyteller]

Hello Chubby,

I like the other solutions that have been offered. I think I might experiment with some of them...

But, back to you. . .

The quickest way to solve your situation is to use the &quot;AutoText&quot; feature in Word. &quot;AutoText&quot; gives you the ability to associate a single word or words with an entire paragraph or more of text. You have probably seen this in action and have not realized it. If you type &quot;Janu&quot; you will notice a small yellow box above where you are typing with the word &quot;January&quot; that is an example of &quot;AutoText&quot;.

To create an &quot;AutoText&quot; entry do the following:
1. Either type the paragraph you require or find a document that has the paragraph already created.
2. Select the paragraph. (If you &quot;Triple-Click&quot; with the mouse you will select the entire paragraph) After you have selected the paragraph.
3. <Insert> select <AutoText> then <New>
4. This is where you can associate 1 or more words to be the &quot;AutoText&quot; I usually recommend that Users use something like &quot;\solution1&quot; (without the quotes). The reason for the backslash is that if you use solution1 the yellow autotext box will appear whenever the User types solu...
5. Repeat steps 1-4 as needed.

Note:
AutoText is saved to the specific computer not to the Users profile. In more technical terms it is saved to the &quot;Normal.dot&quot; file of the specific computer. What this means is that if you have one person create all of the &quot;AutoText&quot; entries you could take a copy of their &quot;Normal.dot&quot; file and save it overtop of the other Users computers.
Warning:
The &quot;Normal.dot&quot; file is the &quot;New Blank document&quot; for Word. I would suggest you create a backup copy before you distrubute this solution.

Good Luck,
Michael
Microsoft Office 2000 Master Instructor

 

[chubby]

Thanks Storyteller, I'm going to try what you wrote. I'll let you know the out come...

Thanks once again CHUBBY!!!

 

[ilses]

Chubby,

Sorry 'bout the sloppy formulation. What I meant is no more than that you end up with a template that holds the text that you want to be able to use over and over again in a document.

AutoText is stored in a document or template.
You do not need to store AutoText entries in Normal.dot. Select the template that needs to have them with the dropdown &quot;Look in&quot;.

Be careful not to mix up AutoCorrect and AutoText!

Ciao,

ilses

 

[jfhewitt]

Much less complicated (but not as sophisticated) than the suggested methods is to create a Word file for each of your boilerplate paragraphs. Then create a macro to insert each file into your document. You can have a macro for each insertion, and custom your toolbars so that the user can select the macro to make the insertion. That way you can easily edit the Word file to make changes in the file to be inserted. This is a very easy method with legal documents.