Word 2013 feature to automate documents. Create variables to autofill large word doc

[dalearyous]

the title might be off. is there a way to take a very large word document and place variables through out it with a menu or side pane with a list of the variables you can set. that way when you set them it applies it to the entire document.

 

[Chrisroman]

You could do that by coding a custom plugin for Word, or a non-code solution would be to create a Word Form Template, the form fields would be your placeholders for the variables. You could then import the field values from a CSV file, excel, or even an Access database.

 

[PTNL]

At first I was going to suggest a mail merge.

Thinking through this further has me leaning toward some custom VBA programming -- e.g. a button that does a string search/replace for the variables, discovered by a unique tag wrapping, and looked up against a known dictionary. Pressing a button, or listening to a print event, would give an opportunity to swap the variables for the terms. However, I can't think of how to accurately do the reverse concept: reverting the terms back to their variables.

(I can't think of a definitive solution, but I am interested in reading about working solutions that others may propose.)