Automatically linking data from Word into Excel

J

Jay in MD

I am running Office 2007 Professional on Vista Business.
I do not need to maintain backwards compatibility with Office 97-2003
(doc,xls, etc.), but it would be nice if I could.
I am looking for a way to link data residing in Word documents into an Excel
spreadsheet, so that it updates automatically.

The situation:
We have numerous Word (doc) files that get updated by users regularly (it is
procedures for some of our business activities, so it pretty much has to stay
in Word). (NOTE: The word documents themselves are stable in number for the
most part, but content changes within it.) Included in these files are
specific items (Management Points) that need to get pulled out and linked on
a spreadsheet (xls). All the users have been trained to use the styles and
formatting sheet to identify the various classes of data, so it is formatted
consistently in the Word document as a Style titled Management Point.

The problem:
Several times a week, the Management Points need to be updated in a
spreadsheet (Primary Review) that is where management records its reviews,
changes, etc. of the items. As a business control, the users of the word
documents can't update the Primary Review spreadsheet, even to drop in the
items Management Points. There are numerous (>100) of these Management Points
in each document, and while only a few generally change per document each
time, the change needs to be captured on the spreadsheets.
Right now, the spreadsheets and documents are in the same directory, but it
would be useful if they could be separated -- but not at all critical.

The current solution is that somebody opens all the word documents, selects
for all the content formatted as a Management Point, copies it, and drops it
manually into the Primary Review spreadsheet. The process itself works fine,
but it requires somebody actually doing it, which doesn't always happen.
What I am hoping is that there is a function where I can link from word
document data to the Primary Review spreadsheet. I do this all the time
between spreadsheet, but I come up short when trying to link to anything in a
Word document.

Thanks!
 
K

Kevin B

Why not embed an Excel workbook object in the Word documents in question.
This would be a dynamic update and eliminate the need for any manaul updating.

All you would have to do in the Word document is double click on the Excel
object to activate the Excel application.

Hope this helps.
 

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