Help with automating multiple Word documents that share variable information

Question

Hello - I am a landlord. I have a 13 page lease document with "fields" for Name, Address, DOB, rent amount, start date, end date, etc. I also use other associated documents that repeat the same data of Name, address, etc.

I would like to create a document where those fields are listed, and I can simply enter the appropriate data into that second document that would "feed" to the fields in the lease template. Similar to how a mail merge works. Does anyone here have an idea of how to create such a lease template, and associated 2nd document which would feed data to that lease document and other associated documents? I am tired of entering the same data over and over for each of the documents.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Answer 1

This is not a simple matter because documents are designed to be independent.

I am a lawyer and often prepare many documents for the same client or case and need common information in them.

I use an Excel workbook to hold the information.

Each row is for a different case.

I then use Mail Merge to get that information into my documents.

Mail merge using an Excel spreadsheet - Word

This is not using it for mass mailing but more like a database. This method has worked for me for more than thirty years.

It requires that I insert the information into Excel before I can get it into the documents, but it only needs to be done once.

Anything else is going to involve macros and be harder to maintain, in my opinion.

Answer 2

See the following pages of Greg Maxey's website :

http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Create\_and\_employ\_a\_UserForm.htm

http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Populate\_UserForm\_ListBox.htm

You could have a userform that has a new client button that then allows you to enter information that would be written to an Excel Work book. In addition, it could display in a list box, or combo box records that have already been entered into the Excel Work book so that you can select a record with the data for which you want to create the documents which would be done by selecting from another combobox or listbox the template(s) for the document(s) that you want to create.

While that takes some setting up, it would be very easy to use.

If it is beyond you, then the Heath Robinson method suggested by Charles can be quite satisfactory.