Hi
This may take a bit of explaining so please bear with me.

Also - Please note this is for discussion and people to provide ideas to point me in a direction - although I have not found a solution that doesnt cost the earth to do what I want it to, this doesnt mean its not out there, or there is a solution that with tweaking would serve...

The Problem

I have a contract to put together which is based on a historical template - this comprises of approx 40 different docs which range in dozens to hundreds of pages long per doc.

This 'contract' then acts as a framework under which future defined works packages are let.

On of the documents in the frame is purely for defined terms.

In the other docs the defined terms are Capitalised to show they are Defined.

In the Defined Terms doc each term is listed alphabetically with the Term in bold followed by the definition. This could be a two column table or done by tabs.

There are no page or doc references, although I think it would be better if there were, but historically this type of contract is put together manually.

What I need is some guidance on how to approach this, and if anyone has done this sort of thing before... I have a little experience in VBA in Excel, but have never dabbled in Word macros before... this doesn't take it off of the table as a solution, but I would be happy if there was another more conventional way of doing this.

I have an immediate need, but would also like to learn / develop a solution as I can see the need for this many times in the future.



Lastly - I see there being two main ways to achieve what I need

Possible Ways Forward

1 - create the list of terms and definitions in one doc, and find a way of marking those terms each and every time in all the other docs with a book mark back to the original, or

2 - Loop through all the Capitalised terms in all the docs in a folder and create a list of unique items in a new doc, to which the definitions can be added - this wont book mark / link them as with 1 but may be the easier way of doing this...

Potential problem - Defined Terms are only defined by Capitalisation, which may cause issues with determining if the first word in a sentence is a Defined Term or not... perhaps 2 needs to utilise a bookmarking or tagging system first and then create the extract...

Thanks in advance for any comments, and for just making time to read this...
GreenBoy