Making a template

[mitch236]

Hi! I am a physician and would like to build a template. I would like to be able to give my patients a yearly summary of their preventative care. It should read like a personal letter and list the dates of their last specific exams and the specialist that performed them and the date of the next future exams for each specialist. I would like it to be template driven meaning I would open a document that would have maybe text boxes that could be selected for each topic. I would also like to attach the contact information that I have in Excel for the specialist the patient sees for the exam.

What is the best way to proceed to build this? I don't have much experience with MS Word but I found text boxes and thought I could build a text box for each dialogue that could be included into the document but maybe there is a better way? I wanted to ask before I start because, as you can imagine, this is going to require a lot of work to build and I want to do it right the first time.


Thanks,
Mitch

[macropod]

Hi Mitch,

Presumably, you're storing all the client data in a database or, perhaps, an Excel workbook. In that case, you could use Word's Catalogue/Directory Mailmerge facility for the letter generation (the terminology depends on the Word version). To see how to do so with any mailmerge data source supported by Word, check out my Microsoft Word Catalogue/Directory Mailmerge Tutorial at:
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/sho...ngs-(2000-2010)
or
http://www.gmayor.com/Zips/Catalogue%20Mailmerge.zip
The tutorial covers everything from list creation to the insertion & calculation of values in multi-record tables in letters. Do read the tutorial before trying to use the mailmerge document included with it. You could enhance the tutorial's examples with ASK/FILLIN fields that provide prompts for anything additional that is to be input at the time, including the triggering of the inclusion of additional boilerplate text.

For a recent, worked example, see the attachment to post #13 at: https://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/9180-mail-merge-duplicate-names-but-different-dollar.html

Alternatively, you may want to try the Many to One utility on the MergeTools Add-in that you can download from the following page of Doug Robbins' Windows Live SkyDrive: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=5aedcb43615e886b#cid=5AEDCB43615E886B&id=5AED CB43615E886B%21111

Be warned: unlike an ordinary mailmerge, none of this is simple where the potential exists for each client to have multiple records that have to be incorpprated into the same letter.

[mitch236]

We don't keep a MS compatible database of patient info. But that part doesn't really matter. What I want is a way to build a document that would allow for "click and add" segments of verbage. Something like:

Dear Mr. Jones,

Thank you for your visit. Your last colonoscopy was performed by Dr. Smith on 1/1/02. Your next colonoscopy should be performed by 1/1/12 or sooner if your specialist requests. Please make arrangements with Dr. Smith to complete this vital screening test. I have included the contact information for your convenience.

Dr. Smith
(111) 555-1212


From the above example we would need to be able to insert a text box that had the outline for the paragraph and have selectable fields for Dr. Smith's name and info, another selectable field for date of last service and next service.

Is this easily possible?

[macropod]

Hi Mitch,

For a simple letter like the one described, you could use a Word form document. See the attached document which uses some text formfields, dropdown fields, etc for soliciting inputs that are then propagated/processed elsewhere in the document.

However, your original post seems to suggest you want to be able to have a letter that might include multiple visits and treatments:

I would like to be able to give my patients a yearly summary of their preventative care. It should read like a personal letter and list the dates of their last specific exams and the specialist that performed them and the date of the next future exams for each specialist.

In that case, the question arises as to how all the past data are to get into the letter. Is it all to be typed, or can it be retrieved from a database or spreadsheet? Either way, the document setup becomes much more complicated, especially if you want to both import some data and have other data input by the user.

[mitch236]

Thanks! That's the kind of formatting I need. How did you build and insert the drop down text boxes?

[macropod]

Hi Mitch,

For that document, I used various formfields. You can access these via the 'Legacy Tools' button on the Developer tab's 'Contols' block. For the date calculation, I used a field from my Microsoft Word Date Calculation Tutorial, available at:
http://lounge.windowssecrets.com/index.php?showtopic=249902
or
http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm#Third_party
The tutorial shows how to do all sorts of date calculations using field coding (all of which entail fairly complex field coding).

Something that might be useful for you is to have a portion of the document into which you can freely insert additional text, etc. You'll note that, at the moment, the only thing you can do is to fill in the various fields. To create such a portion, insert two consecutive continuous section breaks. Then, when you apply forms protection to the document, leave that Section unprotected. See attached. The document now has three Sections and Section 2 is unprotected.