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What is the best approach for controlling content in word documents?

We have a large number of word docs with common sections, such as dept applications that are shown in a table at the front of the documents. The obvious problem is what to do when the common section is updated on the source template.

I have been playing around with bookmarks and hypertext by pointing them at a template document. That works, but the user has to click through the link to see the detail. I was hoping to find a way to update my target documents dynamically with the detail. My impression is that the only way to manage this is via a macro. Is that accurate?

Thx

Steven Carnahan

It sounds like you are talking about seeing Excel in Word? If that is the case then you probably are wanting to use the link option.

Insert a linked object or embedded object from an Excel file
1.Open both the Word document and the Excel worksheet that contains the data that you want to create a linked object or embedded object from.
2.Switch to Excel, and then select the entire worksheet, a range of cells, or the chart that you want.
3.Press CTRL+C.
4.Switch to the Word document, and then click where you want the information to appear.
5.On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click the arrow under Paste, and then click Paste Special.

Word Ribbon image
6.In the As list, select Microsoft Office Excel object.
7.Click Paste to insert an embedded object, or click Paste link to insert a link to the object.

BillTr

ASKER

Thanks for the response!

No, I am actually dealing with word documents. Some sections of the docs are common to all the "target" documents. What I want to be able to do is update it once (in a source or template) and have the change be visable all the target docs.

So far I have found 2 options for doing this. The first is the hyperlink... but that requires the user to CTRL-Click on the link to see the detail and it won't print. The second w/b to write a macro to copy from the source to the targets.

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Steven Carnahan

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BillTr

ASKER

Ah.... this is progress.

Is there an easy way to automate the F9?

BillTr

ASKER

And would there be a way to default the path of the file to the same library as the document? In this case the docs will be out on a server.

Steven Carnahan

I don't know of a way to automate the key press without writing a macro. (I am not good at this)

You should be able to put the full path in front of the file name.

BillTr

ASKER

The files are actually stored on sharepoint. I found that I can pull the path up from there and add it to the path in quick parts. It would be nice if it c/b set to default to the current subdirectory but I haven't figured if that's possible. I know there is a quick parts library.... etc

But that IS a different question than the one I asked you and so I'm assigning the points.

Thank you!!!

BillTr

ASKER

Very helpful!!!

BillTr

ASKER

I am finding some issues when using quick parts in a sharepoint library. I made some changes to the format of a table in my source but when I did an F9 in my target file I found they were corrupted. Fonts were messed up. Changes to color did not come through. The original source still reflected the changes, they were only corrupted on the view in the target file.