I have this really tedious project to do at work and I swear I've done it a better way before back the attorney's office I interned at but I just can't remember how. Here's what I have to do.

I have an excel file with 125 rows, each a different product with about 10 columns of data such as color, vendor description, average weight, etc.

My company wants me to make a MS Word document, a product spec, with the info. All the info doesn't go right beside each other, it's like a form being filled in with the info from the excel spreadsheet.

It is taking me FOREVER to transfer the data into where it's supposed to go on the product spec just by looking at the excel on half the screen and cut and pasting into word.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

4/6/2006 11:24:37 PM

its called a Macro, it uses visual basic.

Or. You can setup the Product Spec as a template and connect it to the excel file as a datasource and map out the fields. This would probably be what you are referring to.

4/6/2006 11:29:02 PM

It's currently set up in a basic document form but also saved as a template. I had thought about the macro possibiltiy but I'm not really familiar with it. From what I gather it basically just records your actions and performs them for repetitive tasks? Would it switch to the next row down like it should?

Any decent crash course in macros info or links would be nice :-)

4/6/2006 11:47:40 PM

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA100670911033.aspx

4/7/2006 12:14:47 AM

I would use a Mail Merge.
Mail Merges are specialized in creating forms letters or templated documents for any number of similar records, as in your excel sheet.

In Word, create your template, but where all the data from the excel should go, just leave blank.
(these steps might be a little different in different versions of Word, but the idea remains the same)
Go to Tools > Letters and Mailings > Mail Merge
Go though the wizard, and be sure to choose "use current document" as the 'starting document'. Then in the Select Recipients step, choose "use an existing list", and Browse to find your excel spreadsheet.
Then in the "Write your letter" step, choose "more items", and it will pop up a window with all the columns in your spreadsheet. You can choose the fields (columns) in your spreadsheet and insert them at the appropriate place.
Then once all the fields are in the right place, you can perform the merge, and it will populate a big Word file with all the rows in the spreadsheet.

It varies from version to version - here is how to do it in Office 2002-2003
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010349201033.aspx

And here in 2000
http://www.uis.edu/ctl/training/handouts/merge.pdf

the instructions are a bit intimidating, but it's really not that hard and the end result is great.

4/7/2006 4:21:13 AM

yeah, i like how noen goes to probably the worst of the two options first. mail merge is the way to go on this one

4/7/2006 5:55:11 PM

except noen's second suggestion is basically the same thing as a mail merge. he just decided to say it in a way that she wouldn't possibly understand

[Edited on April 7, 2006 at 6:18 PM. Reason : or you, apparently]

4/7/2006 6:16:49 PM

At the atty's office i did it with both macro's and mail merge I believe... thanks for all the help though everyone!!

4/8/2006 8:46:05 PM