Quickly merge common fields together from multiple forms

Question

I want to send out a document to several of our interntaional offices asking the same set of questions.  I will get back 10 responses (one for each location), answering each of the questions.  How can I merge the responses so that all responses are grouped together under each question without a massive cut and paste exercise.  In other words, I want a summary document that has Question 1 with all the individual reponses below for this question and then a section with Question 2 and all the country responses for this speicfic question.

Here is what my hoped for final document looks like...

Question 1

Country A response

Country B response

Question 2

Country A response

Coutnry B response

Etc...

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions!

Answer 1

The answers are probably not long or complex but there will be 50 to 60 questions per country so cut and paste feels like a lot of work.  Also, we will be doing this process every couple of months so if we can build a process that works now, that will save us time as we do the same process over and over.

Answer 2

You are correct...I was thinking about how to do this before I was worring about the design of the forms.   So in this case, are you suggesting using a bookmark function in word and is this easy to do?

Second question...all responses  can be in an explicit style if that helps...that is easy to ensure.

Individual responses are second type you have indicated.  It would alternate between a question and answer and then another question and answer.

Thanks!

Answer 3

Much depends on the documents that you send out.

If they are forms then see http://www.gmayor.com/ExtractDataFromForms.htm which will extract data from legacy form fields and content controls to an Excel worksheet which can then be used to create a many to one mail merged  http://www.gmayor.com/ManyToOne.htm  report. If the documents do not use such fields it is rather more complicated - but see http://www.gmayor.com/extract_data_from_similar_docs.htm which should help get you started.

As you have not yet apparently sent out the documents - then send out protected forms with legacy form fields which makes the extraction simpler as there is little room for users to embroider the results with data that would make extraction more difficult.

Answer 4

Oh, and as there are only 10 returns it may in fact be quicker to cut and paste, compared to developing some automated solution.

On the other hand, as I have no idea if the responses are large blocks of text, or not, it may be relatively simple to say remove all the questions and then collate the responses. Are they all single paragraphs (however long)?

Answer 5

First of all I am assuming you did not actually plan and design for this beforehand. If you did, you will have the answers going into bookmarks, or some such thing. Collating like-bookmarks from multiple documents is not difficult.

Second, assuming that the responses are not actually fields, but plain text, do they happen to use explicit styles. This would also help a lot.

Third, if not bookmarked, nor using Styles, are the individual returns like this:

Country A document

Question 1 response

Question 2 response

Question 3 response

etc.

Country B document

Question 1 response

Question 2 response

Question 3 response

etc.

Or are they like this:

Country A document

Question 1

Question 1 response

Question 2

Question 2 response

Question 3

Question 3 response

etc.