Creating Word document that automatically inputs text into applicable fields,

[jjfromnj]

I work for a local government agency and, perhaps not so surprisingly, the inefficiency is mind boggling. I interview clients all day long and have to fill out about a dozen forms per client. These forms are all saved individually as Word files. They have pre-formatted text that is uneditable with blank text fields where I manually input the client's details. So I manually type in the client's name, date, address, SSN, case number, etc. multiple times across the dozen or so forms. God damn is it excruciatingly inefficient.

What I want to do is create a single Word document that includes all 12 of these forms. I want to type in each piece of info once and have Word automatically input the info into all applicable fields throughout all the forms. I also want Word to automatically input the current date where applicable.

There are also a couple forms which I only use occasionally. Is there any way to exclude these from the standard file i'm trying to create by default but leave it as an option to include them (and also automatically populate their applicable fields)?

Surely this is possible, right? I've tried bringing my idea up to my administration and IT department and they basically told me to **** off. Your tax dollars at work!

[macropod]

See: http://gregmaxey.com/word_tip_pages/repeating_data.html

As for your occasional forms, you could add macros to those to pull the required data from the corresponding regular form.

Somehow I doubt my tax dollars have anything to do with this...

[gmayor]

Greg's web page may help, but personally I would create a userform to select the forms required and input the common data, then open and write the data to each of the documents, save and close them. There is no need to combine them, unless you particularly wish to do so and it may create formatting issues if you do.
For the basics, see http://www.gmayor.com/Userform.htm

[Charles Kenyon]

I agree with Graham's suggestion as being the most elegant. It will be a matter of identifying the spot in the documents you want the information stored. These may well have bookmarks already if they are legacy Word forms.

A less elegant solution would be mail merge, but that would require that on some level you have the ability to edit the forms you are filling in to turn them into primary merge documents with merge fields. Mail merge requires less technical ability than does vba for a userform, IMHO. However, getting permission to alter government forms (even if not changing layout or text) may require more than you can deal with.

Note, I regularly modify non-modifiable government forms to make them mail merge, but I don't work for the government. If what they want is the paper result, it shouldn't matter to them.