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Forums › Microsoft Windows › Instructional Documents which change per Client


4730 posts

Uber Geek

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Topic # 113154 8-Jan-2013 12:18 Send private message

Hi There!

I am looking to create some documents for helping customers setup some devices which their particular information will change each document. 

I want it to be as quick as possible for us to generate but as clear as possible for the customer. 

I did consider doing an excel with an information key, which could be converted to PDF, but it seems messy. 

Any ideas?

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388 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 741559 8-Jan-2013 12:39 Send private message

I did something like this a while ago, basically a bunch of lookup tables used in conjunction with the CONCATENATE command. I can't remember how I did it precisely, but basically the variable text obtained through the lookups is concatenated with the constant stuff. My document was a technical one where you'd enter the file being worked on and it basically it generated a step by step document with all the correct parameters specific to that file.



4730 posts

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  Reply # 741560 8-Jan-2013 12:40 Send private message

lurker: I did something like this a while ago, basically a bunch of lookup tables used in conjunction with the CONCATENATE command. I can't remember how I did it precisely, but basically the variable text obtained through the lookups is concatenated with the constant stuff. My document was a technical one where you'd enter the file being worked on and it basically it generated a step by step document with all the correct parameters specific to that file.


Yah that is what I want. Would you be willing to share it?

388 posts

Ultimate Geek

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  Reply # 741583 8-Jan-2013 13:18 Send private message

Those documents are with my previous employer.
But something along these lines:

You have a cell with the value that determines the text
eg E2="rick"

Then you have a table with all your variable data, eg from A2 to B4 this:
    A         B
2  baxter  vodka
3  rick      cola
4  jordan  juice

Then you'd use VLOOKUP in a CONCATENATE command to string things together:

CONCATENATE("I'd like a ",VLOOKUP(E2,A2:B4,2,FALSE)," please")

Result="I'd like a cola please"

Hopefully that's a good starting point for you...

1054 posts

Uber Geek
  Reply # 741622 8-Jan-2013 13:59 Send private message

Maybe LaTeX if you're adventurous (it's a long time since I used it, but it worked well when I last did) or if not I think Word mail merge can output documents?

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