Integrating Excel Data into Word Document

[mruetz]

I need to import data that I load into Excel from another application, into a word report file. I had tried using the link function where you can create a linkage between Excel and Word. This did work, but I found the links would break, when sharing files via email etc. and I also need to refresh Excel data from the application and want these updated values to be reflected in the report. Each row in the Excel data has a unique name and then some cells of that same record have fields that I would want to import. I was thinking I might be able to have tags in the word report which could be replaced by the Excel data when I finalize. So for example the line in the Word document might look like this:

The detail narrative wording for process A is as follows: <Process A><Narrative>
The summary narrative wording for process A is as follows: <Process A><Summary>
The detail narrative wording for process B is as follows: <Process B><Narrative>
The summary narrative wording for process B is as follows: <Process B><Summary>

Then in Excel, I would have the data such as

Process A, Here is the narrative text A, Here is the summary text A
Process B, Here is the narrative text B, Here is the summary text B
Process C, Here is the narrative text C, Here is the summary text C

I was thinking a VLOOKUP or something similar would be great to pull from Excel but I don't believe that will work from a Word document.

Any ideas on how to approach this would be appreciated.

Thanks, Matt