Rich,

Are you a lawyer or in a law office? I am a lawyer.

If you are willing to spend a bit of time, learn how to use Word's built-in features of Mail Merge and perhaps AutoText. I use mailmerge extensively in building customized documents for my clients. I have forms set up as main mailmerge documents. I have a datafile of my cases in Excel and use the Mail Merge function to input the data from the datafile for a client into one or more forms. Note, I do not do a final merge to a new document or printer. Rather the forms are Word templates.

When I create a new document based on the template a macro in the template switches the new document to a main mailmerge document and attaches the datafile. It opens a query box asking for the record I want.

This automatically fills in information about the client and case into the form. If I wanted, I could have ASK fields, particular to the form, to get information not in the datafile. What I end up with is a good rough draft which may be further customized to the particulars of the case.

I then use the "Start Mail Merge" button and make the document a normal Word document, breaking the link to the datafile, and save the document. I do not send this to clients or anyone as a Word document, rather I either use a printed copy or make it a PDF.

This is not a short path, but it has been satisfying to me. When a new file is opened, my secretary creates the data record as a part of setting up the file. This makes preparation of routine documents very quick and easy.

Note one of the primary rules of computers, though: GIGO. A mistake in that datafile will be replicated throughout your documents. I am sure that this also applies to "The Form Tool" or any other document automation tool.