a question about Word documents - expert advice needed please

[blurredvision]

Hey guys. Let me try to explain short and sweet what I am wanting to do, and mabye someone can tell me whether it can be done. What I am wanting to do is for where I work, where we (my fellow 12 co-workers and myself) have been challenged to find a solution to a problem we have been having. In our line of work, for every "peice of work" we do, we have to fill out a simple form in Word. This form MUST be correct, yet plenty of my co-workers keep forgetting to fill in a couple of fields every now and then. We simply get the info, then fill it into a pre-made word document with a header and tables.

I was wondering if it's possible in Word to be able to make a template of this one page, and be able to fix up dialog boxes to fill in the info automatically. Like, say we open the template, and a dialog box opens wanting the date (one of the required fields always). You then type in the date, click next, and it'll will ask for the info in order. After you enter in the info in the consecutive dialogs, it will fill out the form automatically. My idea is that if you have to go through it a step at a time, you won't miss any of the fields. Can this be done in Word using macros or something of the sort?

Sorry if this a stupid question, but I thought it might be possible. Thanks ahead of time for any links or info you guys can provide.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Answer is Yes.

I have seen it done - but am not an expert to give you the solution.

 

[blurredvision]

Anybody else have any ideas??

 

[MrMilney]

Head over to the WOPR Lounge. There are people there who have been using Word since version 1 and are willing to help. I'm sure you will be able to get the help you need there.

 

[teddymines]

I use VBA for Excel all the time, so I might be able to help.

There are 2 obvious solutions: one is to use Word's built-in forms accessible from Forms toolbar. Then you can assemble the forms in a table. The second solution involves VBA.

For the VBA, you will need to capture the document open event (or have the user manually run a macro) and call a userform you design. The userform would have the fields you need and can throw up a message box if one is left blank. Then your code can copy the values from the text boxes into objects you have in your document. This sounds simplistic, but it is the general flow I'd use in Excel.

Have you considered a database approach? I know that Access has validation rules you can apply to fields.