Question

Getting one Word document to "read" information from another, and import it

Asked by: Polemic

I have a questionnaire as a form in Word. Each input field (there are well over 100) has what Word calls a "Bookmark" - a unique identifier. Some input fields are text, some numeric, some check boxes and some drop-downs.

At present, a staff member manually cuts and pastes the text from the questionnaire into a report template, making sure each response is pasted under the appropriate heading and has the correct style applied.

What I want to be able to do is have the report template treat the questionnaire the way Word treats the data document in a mail merge.

I want it to "read" the Bookmark of each field, extract the text, import it into the correct place and apply the correct style.

At this stage of the report production process there are no graphics or set page breaks to worry about - these are added later.

If you need any further information, or to see copies of the questionnaire and/or the template (though the latter is just a standard word .dot with a couple of macros) let me know.

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Asked On
2006-08-25 at 01:38:29ID21967131
Tags

word

,

document

,

read

Topic

Microsoft Word

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: GrahamSkanPosted on 2006-08-25 at 03:41:44ID: 17388320

A simple, no-code way would be to save the form data only and use it as a datasource. It creates a CSV file, and you would need to create a separate header source.
To save as Forms data only, you need to set the option (Tools/Options, save Tab).

 

by: PolemicPosted on 2006-08-25 at 08:52:47ID: 17390527

Thanks GrahamSkan, I'll experiment and see if it's feasible, and let you know. I'd probably need to import into Excel to add a header (I don't fancy manually adding 100+ headers each time!) but on the face of it it sounds workable.

I thought Word might have a function to read out the form data into another document. I mean after all, why create form data in the first place if the application doesn't have a method of handling it!?

Or better yet, just write the software so it properly handles XML. But then we *are* talking Microsoft...

/rant

 

by: GrahamSkanPosted on 2006-08-25 at 09:14:16ID: 17390697

The header file can be a separate CSV file, so you only need to do that once for documents based on a particular template.

 

by: PolemicPosted on 2006-09-17 at 20:38:22ID: 17540774

Sorry about the delay in coming back to this... I've been working with some developers to try and take GrahamSkan's idea a step or two further, and hoped to be able to update the question with my findings. But alas it's taking longer than expected.

Thanks to GrahamSkan, we're looking at changing our data-collection method from a Word-based form (which really doesn't produce much in the way of useful output, it seems) to an Excel spreadsheet designed as a form, then using mail merge to import the data. We figurte this will be at a cost of up-front development time but result in a major time saving over using the Word form method.

Thanks, GrahamSkan, for confirming my suspicion that forms are pretty much useless in Word! And for suggesting a work-around which looks like it might provide a simple solution.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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