Forum Discussion
Utilizing Word and Excel For Estimating
My first response is to go to Word's Mail Merge function for, at the very least, a cover page..because that's where you could have such things as logo, colors, key groupings and high level "bottom line" figures for major categories in your estimates. The backup and detailed sheets could be the Excel documents.
The Excel workbook with all its details can be used as the source for the Mail Merge document--so there'd be no problem with inconsistency, so long as you print them at the same time and make no changes in the backup details after printing the cover sheet (or vice versa). This would presume, ideally, that your Excel workbook is consistent enough from job to job that a master Mail Merge document could be created without a need to make changes.
For what it's worth, mail merge can be made to be very smart, with conditional sections--appearing some times, but not always, so that could handle the difference between types of projects, or sub-types.