How can I get my output into this format?

[Jeff Heikkinen]

The answer to this question will probably involve more programs than
just Excel, so I'm not sure if this is the best group to post it in. If
anyone can think of someplace better, please let me know and I'll get
out of your face and go bug them .

My question is of the form "can I do this with just Office (XP pro) and,
possibly, free software, or do I need to get a desktop publishing
program?" I have a pretty straightforward Excel workbook. Each line
has various information on one ability ("feat") that it's possible to
get in a certain game I play. Let's say the columns go like this (a
slight oversimplification):

Name Type Prerequisites Cost Effect

I want to print out a complete list of Feats in the format below. Let's
assume the workbook is already sorted in the order I want. Text in
brackets means the *contents* of a given column, text outside of
brackets means that I literally want that exact text there. I also want
some formatting (for example, the name in a larger font than the rest)
but I assume any software that can print them out like this can also
handle that easily.

Here's the format:

[Name] [Type, if any, in brackets]
Prerequisites: [Prerequisites]
Cost: [Cost]
[Effect]
<empty line>
<repeat once for every Feat, in two columns>

There's a further complication: some don't have a type, and some don't
have prerequisites. In that case I would want those parts left blank.
There should be NOTHING there, no pair of brackets where the type would
be, no empty line where the prerequisites would be.

This is so common in publications that there must be some easy way to do
it, but is it doable *with just Office* and possibly other products I
can download for free? Or do I need desktop publishing software? I
have achieved an approximation of the above by opening the file in Word,
converting table to text, and doing a *lot* of search-and-replace
operations, then about ten minutes of manual edits for the things those
didn't catch. But that's awkward and still doesn't quite get the result
I want (most notably, the type gets its own line and

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
sounds for me like MS Access either stand.alone (a report9 or in
combination with MS Word (mail merge)

 

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Frank Kabel, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Hi
sounds for me like MS Access either stand.alone (a report9 or in
combination with MS Word (mail merge)

Hmm. Guess the next step is trying to figure out how to design Access
reports. I'd been hoping for something a little easier, but that's
probably not that hard (just not a skill I've ever bothered picking up,
is all).

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

It should be easier to do this in a Word mail merge, than to set it up
in Access.

The steps are different in each version of Word, but for Word 2000 --

Open Word, and choose Tools>Mail Merge
In Step 1, choose Catalog
In step 2, choose Open Data Source
Select Files of Type -- MS Excel Worksheets (*.xls)
Select your file, and click OK
You should see a 'Confirm Data Source' dialog box.
(If you don't see the dialog box, change the setting in Word --
under Tools>Options, General -- add a check mark to
'Confirm Conversion at Open')
From that list, choose 'MS Excel Worksheets via DDE (*.xls)'
Click OK, click OK, click Close

Choose Table>Insert>Table
Select 2 columns and 4 rows, click OK

With the cursor in the first cell of the table, click the arrow on the
Insert Merge Field toolbar button, and choose Name.
Press Tab to move to the next field, and insert the Type field.
Insert the remaining text and merge fields in the other cells

Click below the table, and press the Enter key to create a blank line
Format the text as desired.

Choose Tools>Mail Merge
In Step 3, click the Merge button
Choose to merge to New Document
Choose to Print blank lines when data fields are empty
Click Merge