Solved: Legalese document

[TrippyTom]

Hey all, I have a doosie of a question for you this time! :bug: Please forgive me if I don't word it well enough for you to understand what I want.

I need to convert a "legalese" Word document into something more user-friendly. Right now, it has [bracketed] paragraphs that either need to be used (remove the brackets if used) or entirely deleted based on different situations.

I thought it would be a good idea to use a form when the document is opened to get that data beforehand, then use logic to insert or remove paragraphs as needed, based on those choices.

For instance, here are some of the questions the banker would need to know for the userform to decide which paragraphs to insert:

Funding:
O Same Day or Next Day
O Two days' notice

Type of transaction:
O Import
O Export
O Not trade related

Name of country proceeds will be used: _____

Name of country of Obligor: _____

Name of branch: ______

... so in the above example, if the banker chose Same day funding, it would insert one particular section of text. If the banker chose Two day's notice, it would insert a different section of text.

Has anyone done something like this before? Am I going about it the right way?

[TrippyTom]

I take it there's no way to do this? Or is there some kind of way to have footnotes inside Autotext that will appear if used, or disappear if not used.

[lucas]

Maybe this will give you something to build off of:
http://vbaexpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16766

[TrippyTom]

Thanks lucas, that link looks promising. I wasn't sure how to search for this kind of question. :)

[lucas]

Gerry contributed that. I use it as a template and it works great.

[TrippyTom]

Lucas, is there a way to setup a bookmark in different places of the document? (i.e. not in the same paragraph).

For instance, the country name appears in more than one place. Can i have a bookmark refer to multiple places?

[fumei]

"Can i have a bookmark refer to multiple places?"

No. Bookmarks can ONLY cover contigous ranges.

Hard to tell from what you are posting, but maybe Fields would help?

As for: "Or is there some kind of way to have footnotes inside Autotext that will appear if used, or disappear if not used."

Huh? Care to elaborate on that? I have not a clue what that may mean. Footnotes inside of AutoText?

Basically, when building a document from multiple choice scanarios, there are two possible routes.

1. An additive process. The user choices determine the logic to gather textual chunks and ADD them to a blank document.

2. A subtractive process. The user choices determine the logic to remove existing textual chunks.

Which way to go depends on requirements and circumstances...as do all things.

The major disadvantage to the additive process is that you have to have a source of the chunks you are going to add. If they are short, yes, you could hard-code them into the process. This is rarely done. Hard-coding textual content is not a good idea generally.

So. What other option? The text chunks are in another file. You get the user choices, your determine (by logic from those choices) what chunks are needed, and you open the "storage" file, and get those chunks.

OR, those chunks are all AutoText entries, In which case, the logic will determine which entries to use, and (assumably) in what order. Using AutoText would be faster.

In the subtractive process, ALL possible textual chunks exist in the template content. The logic determines which chunks to take out. Removing by using bookmark ranges is fast.

"For instance, the country name appears in more than one place. "

HOW is that done? Manually, or are you using some sort of reference field?

[TrippyTom]

Just forget everything I said. I ended up using a combination of autotext and form fields.