I apologize in advance for this long/detailed post. I need to create the template or userform experience described below. I did it as a template (actually two templates, one pulling from the other) in Word 2011 for Mac, because that’s what I use. I did it using a combination of bookmarks, AUTOTEXTLIST, IF, and INCLUDETEXT formulas, and had it working almost perfectly (I didn’t have to use any VBA – my experience with VBA is limited). But the end users use Windows, so I’ve migrated it (to Word 2016 for Windows), and have had problems making it work. I think it would be best to start from scratch for several reasons, especially because with Word 2016 for Windows I can now use content controls (which I’ve never used before). I’ve also never used userforms. I’ve searched for and read many forum posts on cascading/dependent drop down lists, data mapping, etc., and I’m beginning to get in over my head – Dims and Strings and what-not. One issue is that, although I’ve been able to follow the instructions of some of the experts here on creating cascading drop down lists, I’ve only been able to do that with the “slave” list items hard coded in the VBA, and I want to have all list items pulled from an external source document.



Anyway, here’s what I envision:

1. A source document containing the following (it’s easiest for me to see it as tables, but I understand that it may not be ideal or possible to do it all that way):
a. Table 1 – Column 1 “Case Types” Column 2 “Special Responses” (Each Case Type in Column 1 has one or more Special Responses in Column 2, separated by commas. I suspect that, given what I need in 2c(ii) below, this may not be the proper/ideal way to structure this – for example, perhaps each Case Type should have its own table, with a row for each Special Response available for that Case Type.)
b. Table 2 – Column 1 “Standard Responses” Column 2 “Standard Response Text”
c. Table 3 – Column 1 “Special Responses” Column 2 “Special Response Text”
d. Table 4 – Column 1 “Injury Item” Column 2 “Injury Item Text”

2. User makes the following selections (on either a user form, or the top portion of a template):
a. Case Type DropDown List – source for list items is Column 1 of Table 1
b. Injury Items – check boxes (a check box for each “Injury Item” contained in Column 1 of Table 4, but presumably hard coded into the form rather than sourced from that table)
c. 40 Response DD Lists (Response 1, Response 2, etc.), – list items for each Response DD List include (i) all of the Standard Responses in Column 1 of Table 2, and (ii) the Special Responses listed in Column 2 of Table 1 for the Case Type selected in the Case Type DD List

3. The output (i.e., the document generated by the user form, or the bottom portion of the template) would be numbered paragraphs corresponding to the Response DD Lists for which the user has made a selection (i.e., if the user has only made selections in the first 15 Response DD Lists, then there would be only 15 numbered paragraphs). The text of each paragraph would be taken from Column 2 of Table 2 (if the user has selected one of the Standard Responses) or Column 2 of Table 3 (if the user has selected one of the Special Responses), with one exception. If the user selects “Injuries” in one of the Response DD Lists (“Injuries” would be one of the Standard Responses), then the text of the corresponding paragraph would be a list, each item of which would be the Injury Item Text in Column 2 of Table 4 for which the corresponding Injury Item check box has been checked.

I know this involves several issues, and again, apologies for the length, but I wanted to be as specific as possible in describing my goal. Many thanks in advance for any help that the experts here can provide!