I complete a lot of psychological evaluations which requires obtaining extensive historical information. A lot of time gets lost converting basic data into paragraph form. I was wondering if there is a way to create a form to enter data that can automatically populate into a prefabricated paragraph.

For example:

Taking this...

Client Name: John Doe
Early childhood location: New York, NY
Mother's Name: Jane Doe
Mother's Age: 55
Relationship with mother: "okay"
Father's Name: John Doe Sr.
Father's Age: 60
Relationship with father: very poor



The base would be:
___ grew up in ___ with his mother, ___ (___), and his father, ___ (___). He describes a/an ___ relationship with his mother and a ___ relationship with his father.

Using the above data would turn it into this...

John Doe grew up in New York, NY with his mother, Jane Doe (55), and his father, John Doe Sr. (60). He describes an "okay" relationship with his mother and a very poor relationship with his father.

This may not seem to save much time, but this is just a small portion of what a full report would contain. Entering basic data into a form would speed up the interview and could potentially be something I could have them do on a computer in the waiting room prior to the appointment. This would free up more time during the interview and during report writing.

Any ideas? Is this even possible?

Hi mkellar,

What are the basic data entered into? A database or an Excel file with columns for each 'heading' would make report generation via mailmerge quite simple. Indeed, with a bit of setup, the mailmerge document could conditionally generate paragraphs depending on whether particular fields in the data source have any data.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]