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Old 02-24-2011, 01:31 PM
rtlight rtlight is offline Use changeable table data in doc text? Windows Vista Use changeable table data in doc text? Office 2007
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Default Use changeable table data in doc text?


I want to create a reuseable document that will access data from a table in the same document for various elements of text. The table will have new data pasted in from Excel each time a new version of the document is created but the dimensions (rows x columns) and position of the table will remain constant from version to version.

Can I access the table data to create a sentence that uses data from a table cell without resorting to a VBA solution?

Cross-referencing bookmarked cells doesn't work because the bookmarks are lost each time new data is pasted into the table. I think the issue would be the same if some use of fields were tried.
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Old 02-25-2011, 03:07 AM
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Hi rtlight,

If you configure your Excel workbook with a range that is always used for the table and other references, you can link the Word document to the Excel workbook, so that any changes made there will automatically be reflected in the Word document - with no need for copying etc.
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Old 02-25-2011, 04:53 AM
rtlight rtlight is offline Use changeable table data in doc text? Windows Vista Use changeable table data in doc text? Office 2007
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Thanks for your suggestion. I'll give it a try.

I presume this can be accomplished where both the Excel sheet and Word doc begin as templates are then instantiated as specific files and subsequently locked for archival purposes. I wouldn't want recipients of the final Word doc to see the original Excel references.
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Old 02-25-2011, 04:37 PM
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Hi rtlight,

What you're now describing really isn't a reusable document - it's a document template.

If you've got links, there is no way to hide them from the users. Plus, the template approach won't work happily with links to different Excel workbooks. The solution I posted is really only viable for a document that links to a workbook whose name & path remains unchanged - only the linked data in the referenced range changes.

What might work (if you create a Word mailmerge document and a generic Excel workbook in a suitable folder) is to copy the various Excel workbooks over the generic one, execute a mailmerge and save the mailmerge output back to the client folders. That way, there'll be no links etc in the output file. You would, of course, need to have a worksheet in the workbook laid out with the data all on one row for the mailmerge, but that is fairly easy to set up.
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Old 02-25-2011, 07:29 PM
rtlight rtlight is offline Use changeable table data in doc text? Windows Vista Use changeable table data in doc text? Office 2007
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I appreciate your feedback; it prompted me to give linking another try.

Today I linked a test Word Doc to a test Excel Sheet and it seemed to work well. I had not realized until I played with it that one could select the .rtf option (under Paste Special) when linking to an Excel sheet and get the data pasted as an easily editable table. Previously I thought I had to link to the Excel object and ended up with a piece of a worksheet embedded in my Word doc which I couldn't format. Then, instead of trying to bookmark the individual cells from the linked table, as you pointed out, I link to the Excel data for the text data I need to insert.

I see your point about templates vs. re-usable documents. I will plan to create a re-usable file with a "constant" name and link it to an Excel sheet which will also have a "constant" name. The real Excel work will be done in a different workbook and then the needed content will be pasted to the Excel source with the constant name. Similarly, after the Word doc has been filled with the needed data, I'll simply copy it to another file and break the links.

Once the links are broken, as far as I can see, they can not be toggled and thus remain invisible to a reader.

Mailmerge is not an option I considered since the data I have to embed would involve several thousand fields, if each cell of a linked table is counted separately. I will keep it in mind for the title page of the document.

Thank you again for your thoughtful advice.
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