Forum Discussion
Referencing items in a document
Hi all,
I seek guidance on the best and easiest practices to achieve the following.
First, let me paint the use case.
I have a template that around 50 people will use to create new and ongoing instances of this document.
In this document, they detail how a system will be set up for their client. This setup includes many details that they document in a process flow methodology. They will mention key things like reports, rules, in-product queries, screen changes, and so on that need to be done as part of the solution.
What I am looking to achieve is that a list of each of these reports, rules, in-product queries, and screen changes are captured at the end of the document, creating a succinct list of what is needed for each. For example, the user creating the document may mention ten different reports that are needed. I, therefore, need a section called Reports, which will reference every report mentioned and the page(s) on which it was mentioned. Then, I want the same for the rules, in-product queries, and screen changes.
Since the users creating this document are not Word experts, I want it to be easy for them to "mark" in the text they are typing that this is a report. Marking this will then add it to the reports section at the end of the document.
I would love to hear people's ideas on achieving this.
Thanks,
This is a very broad question that could be the subject of a book but nobody is really writing Word books these days because there is no reward for doing so. (At least, the best authors seem to have stopped writing.)
My inclination would be to save the separate things as AutoText or some other Building Block and use a Building Blocks Gallery Content Control. That BB Gallery Content Control could, itself, be saved as AutoText for easy insertion with AutoComplete and/or a Keyboard Shortcut. This requires no macros.
I would recommend that the BB Gallery Content Control be set so that the Content Control, itself, be deleted when edited. That is, once the choice in made from the list, the list disappears from the document. The finished document will have the item chosen, not the list. To add a second or third item, a new BB Content Control would be inserted and a choice made. (That is the reason to save this control, itself, as a building block.)
If individual documents, you might want to use Boiler - Insert a selection of documents by Graham Mayor, MVP
Other solutions are likely to require fairly complex macro custom written solutions.
References:
- Automated Boilerplate Using Microsoft Word (general page on AutoText, Building Blocks, AutoCorrect, and AutoFormat)
- Building Blocks Gallery Content Control (part of above)
- AutoComplete (part of above)
- Where can Building Blocks be stored? (part of above)
- Assign Your AutoText Entries (Building Blocks) to a Key or Key Combination (part of above) and Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Word 2007-2021 (365)
- Word Content Controls by Greg Maxey
- Templates in Microsoft Word
- This is just a short note that I made substantial additions to my original answer. To see them, look in the forum.
