I'm not sure if this VBA related, and apologise if it appears off-topic.

I have a template for a report that is produced every week.
I would like to customise it where a drop down list will appear on a page of
the document, allowing the editor of the report to select a desired string
of text. Is there any way to doing this?

D.Dawson

Dylan,

See:

Please Fill Out This Form
Part 1: Create professional looking forms in Word
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=22

Part 2: Adding Automation to your Word forms.
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=46

Part 3: Learn more VBA (macros) to automate your forms.
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=119

Part 4: Use custom dialog boxes in your Word forms
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=127

Part 5: Connect your AutoForm to a database to save input time and keep
better records!
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=136

If you wanted to use autotext to store the string, you could use the
following routine in conjunction with a formfield type dropdown

' Macro created 15-11-97 by Doug Robbins to add the address corresponding to
a drop down name

'

Set myDrop = ActiveDocument.FormFields("Dropdown1").DropDown

Company = myDrop.ListEntries(myDrop.Value).Name

Address = ActiveDocument.AttachedTemplate.AutoTextEntries(Company).Value

ActiveDocument.FormFields("Text1").Result = Address

Please respond to the newsgroups for the benefit of others who may be
interested.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Be aware that all of Doug's references are for "protected" forms. If your
template is not for a protected form already, you can use an AutoTextList field
and not have to protect the template. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/AutoTextList.htm for information.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP        Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word

Both of these are good, but not exactly what I'm looking for. I apologise
for not supplying more information to start with.

I have a blank summary sheet, which is basically a table, and this is to be
added to the back of reports. Then the summary items will be added to it. As
it stands just now, the top of the sheet has a text box in which the
reference number of the report is usually typed. And, I am looking for a way
to do this mechanically.

Regards Dylan

So, I thought creating a listbox of all the references that we use in my
company would work. However, I cannot have a locked document and the list
must be easy to scroll through, because it contains a couple of hundred
entries.

Hi Dylan,

In that case, I would be using a userform with a multicolumn listbox that is
populated with data that is stored in an external file.

See the article How to create a Userform at:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Userforms/CreateAUserForm.htm

Here's an example of a routine that loads a listbox with client details
stored in a table in a separate
document (which makes it easy to maintain with additions, deletions etc.),
that document being saved as Clients.Doc for the following code.

On the UserForm, have a list box (ListBox1) and a Command Button
(CommandButton1) and use the following code in the UserForm_Initialize() and
the CommandButton1_Click() routines

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
    Dim sourcedoc As Document, i As Integer, j As Integer, myitem As Range,
m As Long, n As Long
    ' Modify the path in the following line so that it matches where you
saved Suppliers.doc
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    ' Open the file containing the client details
    Set sourcedoc = Documents.Open(FileName:="e:\worddocs\Clients.doc")
    ' Get the number or clients = number of rows in the table of client
details less one
    i = sourcedoc.Tables(1).Rows.Count - 1
    ' Get the number of columns in the table of client details
    j = sourcedoc.Tables(1).Columns.Count
    ' Set the number of columns in the Listbox to match
    ' the number of columns in the table of client details
    ListBox1.ColumnCount = j
    ' Define an array to be loaded with the client data
    Dim MyArray() As Variant
    'Load client data into MyArray
    ReDim MyArray(i, j)
    For n = 0 To j - 1
        For m = 0 To i - 1
            Set myitem = sourcedoc.Tables(1).Cell(m + 2, n + 1).Range
            myitem.End = myitem.End - 1
            MyArray(m, n) = myitem.Text
        Next m
    Next n
   ' Load data into ListBox1
    ListBox1.List() = MyArray
    ' Close the file containing the client details
    sourcedoc.Close SaveChanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges
End Sub

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Dim i As Integer, Addressee As String
Addressee = ""
For i = 1 To ListBox1.ColumnCount
    ListBox1.BoundColumn = i
    Addressee = Addressee & ListBox1.Value & vbCr
Next i
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("Addressee").Range.InsertAfter Addressee
UserForm2.Hide
End Sub

The Initialize statement will populate the listbox with the data from the
table and then when a client is selected in from the list and the command
button is clicked, the information for that client will be inserted into a
bookmark in the document.  You may want to vary the manner in which it is
inserted to suit our exact requirements, but hopefully this will get you
started.

To make it easy for you, the code has been written so that it will deal with
any number of clients and any number of details about each client.  It
assumes that the first row of the table containing the client details is a
header row.

--
Please respond to the newsgroups for the benefit of others who may be
interested.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Sory for the delay in getting back to you, I got disconnected there, for a
while.

Anyways, this example is what I am looking for, the external file holds all
the references for the projects, my only reservation is that on an old
computer the external file takes a while to load.

I would like to reference to an access database rather than a word file.
Also,
how do I invoke the userform when the file is inserted to another document?

Somethingh along the lines of...

Private Sub Document_Inserted()
    frmContractorList.Show
End Sub

Where I would use
Private Sub Document_New()
when a new document is created, the document I want to use has to be
inserted into another.

Yours
Dylan Dawson

Hi Dylan,

The following routing populates a Listbox with data from a table in an
Access database:

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
'allocate memory for the database object as a whole and for the active
record
Dim myDataBase As Database
Dim myActiveRecord As Recordset
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
'Open a database
Set myDataBase = OpenDatabase("E:\Access97\Ely\ResidencesXP.mdb")
'Access the first record from a particular table
Set myActiveRecord = myDataBase.OpenRecordset("Owners", dbOpenForwardOnly)
'Get the number of fields in the table
j = myActiveRecord.Fields.Count
'Get the number of Records in the table
'Loop through all the records in the table until the end-of-file marker is
reached
i = 0
Do While Not myActiveRecord.EOF
    i = i + 1
    'access the next record
    myActiveRecord.MoveNext
Loop
myActiveRecord.Close
'Set the number of columns in the listbox
ListBox1.ColumnCount = j
' Define an array to be loaded with the data
Dim MyArray() As Variant
'Load data into MyArray
ReDim MyArray(i, j)
For n = 0 To j - 2
    Set myActiveRecord = myDataBase.OpenRecordset("Owners",
dbOpenForwardOnly)
    m = 0
    Do While Not myActiveRecord.EOF
        MyArray(m, n) = myActiveRecord.Fields(n + 1)
        m = m + 1
    myActiveRecord.MoveNext
    Loop
Next n
' Load data into ListBox1
ListBox1.List() = MyArray
'Then close the database
myActiveRecord.Close
myDataBase.Close
End Sub

In order for this code to run, you must establish a reference, in your
template, to Microsoft DAO #.## Object Library.  To do this, open the VB
editor and choose References on the Tools menu.   The numbers #.## will vary
with your version of Word, maybe 3.51 or 3.60

I would suggest that the simplest thing to do is have a template with the
userform in it and the table into which the data from the list box will be
inserted.  Then do a File>New to create a document from that template
containing a table with the data for the report that you are working on,
then copy that table and paste it into your report.  The copying of the
table to the clipboard could be done via the code in the userform so that
then all you would have to do would be go to the location in the report
where you want the information and press Ctrl+V.  The code in the userform
could also close the document that was created without saving it.

Please respond to the newsgroups for the benefit of others who may be
interested.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Hi Doug,

I get a bit confused at the line;
For n = 0 To j - 2

Why have "j - 2" ?

Extracted from your original code:
'Load data into MyArray
ReDim MyArray(i, j)
For n = 0 To j - 2
    Set myActiveRecord = myDataBase.OpenRecordset("Owners",
dbOpenForwardOnly)
    m = 0
    Do While Not myActiveRecord.EOF
        MyArray(m, n) = myActiveRecord.Fields(n + 1)
        m = m + 1
    myActiveRecord.MoveNext
    Loop
Next n

Hi Dylan,

I guess in the situation where I was using that code, I didn't want the last
field loaded into the list box (though I did have the listbox.coumncount set
to the number of fields in the table.

Change it to j - 1 to get all of the fields in your table.

Please respond to the newsgroups for the benefit of others who may be
interested.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Is there a way to sort the data alphabetically when it appears in the
listbox?

You would want to sort MyArray before loading its contents into the listbox.
There are plenty of sorting routines available in the Internet which you
could adapt. Just do a search with Quicksort and VB as the keywords. VB code
for this sort of thing should work perfectly happily in VBA.

--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
MultiLinker - Automated generation of hyperlinks in Word
Conversion to PDF & HTML
http://www.multilinker.com
Word FAQs at http://www.multilinker.com/wordfaq
Please post any follow-up in the newsgroup. I do not reply to Word questions
by email

I keep getting error messages when trying to operate the sorting routine. I'm using the following code and I get an error at the line highlighted, stating that "value = arr(index)=<Subscript out of Range>" any idea where I'm going wrong?

Sub CombSort(arr As Variant, Optional numEls As Variant, _
    Optional Descending As Boolean)
    Dim value As Variant
    Dim index As Long
    Dim firstItem As Long
    Dim Gap As Long
    Dim Swap As Boolean

    ' account for optional arguments
    If IsMissing(numEls) Then numEls = UBound(arr)
    firstItem = LBound(arr)

    Gap = numEls - firstItem + 1
    Swap = False

    Do While (Gap > 1 Or Swap)
        ' divide Gap by 1.3 - the author says it's an empirical value
        If Gap > 1 Then Gap = (10 * Gap) \ 13
        ' another empirical value
        If (Gap = 9 Or Gap = 10) Then Gap = 11
        Swap = False
        For index = firstItem To numEls - Gap

            If (value > arr(index + Gap)) Xor Descending Then
                ' if the items are not in order, swap them
                arr(index) = arr(index + Gap)
                arr(index + Gap) = value
                Swap = True
            End If
        Next
    Loop
End Sub

Hi Dylan,

The easiest thing to do is create a query in Access that does the sorting
and use the method that I gave you to load the data from that query rather
then from the table.

Please respond to the newsgroups for the benefit of others who may be
interested.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
I keep getting error messages when trying to operate the sorting routine.
I'm using the following code and I get an error at the line highlighted,
stating that "value = arr(index)=<Subscript out of Range>" any idea where
I'm going wrong?

Sub CombSort(arr As Variant, Optional numEls As Variant, _
    Optional Descending As Boolean)
    Dim value As Variant
    Dim index As Long
    Dim firstItem As Long
    Dim Gap As Long
    Dim Swap As Boolean

    ' account for optional arguments
    If IsMissing(numEls) Then numEls = UBound(arr)
    firstItem = LBound(arr)

    Gap = numEls - firstItem + 1
    Swap = False

    Do While (Gap > 1 Or Swap)
        ' divide Gap by 1.3 - the author says it's an empirical value
        If Gap > 1 Then Gap = (10 * Gap) \ 13
        ' another empirical value
        If (Gap = 9 Or Gap = 10) Then Gap = 11
        Swap = False
        For index = firstItem To numEls - Gap

            If (value > arr(index + Gap)) Xor Descending Then
                ' if the items are not in order, swap them
                arr(index) = arr(index + Gap)
                arr(index + Gap) = value
                Swap = True
            End If
        Next
    Loop
End Sub