Narrative Software or Sticking with Word?

[NachoPerito]

How easy is it to link word and excel? Do you have to create a macro or is it simpler than that?

 

[John Glass]

How easy is it to link word and excel? Do you have to create a macro or is it simpler than that?

Pasting a link is ridiculously simple.

1. Copy table, word, number, etc.

2. Open the Paste Special dialog

3. Check "Paste Link" box

4. Pick paste format, i.e. "unformatted, picture, etc.

5. Click OK

You have pasted data from excel to word, linking the data to the excel woorkbook.

I start with a linked set of word and excel templates. Edit the excel workbook, then change the links in the Word doc from old excel file to new excel file.

 

[josephdifranco]

Pasting a link is ridiculously simple.

1. Copy table, word, number, etc.

2. Open the Paste Special dialog

3. Check "Paste Link" box

4. Pick paste format, i.e. "unformatted, picture, etc.

5. Click OK

You have pasted data from excel to word, linking the data to the excel woorkbook.

I start with a linked set of word and excel templates. Edit the excel workbook, then change the links in the Word doc from old excel file to new excel file.

I'm curious as to whether you or anyone else also pairs up microsoft access into the mix of word and excel. Its very reasonable at about $100, seems like it would be great to have a database versus scrolling through one report at a time. I just don't know if it could be made to work efficiently.

 

[VegasWayne]

I use Access more than Excel. It is a very powerful tool. I use it to generate reports for market trends and for sports betting. You could do an entire narrative report using only Access. It can also be integrated with most of the other Office products, including Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and Outlook.

 

[josephdifranco]

I use Access more than Excel. It is a very powerful tool. I use it to generate reports for market trends and for sports betting. You could do an entire narrative report using only Access. It can also be integrated with most of the other Office products, including Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and Outlook.

Vegas,

Do you do commercial reports? I would like to do all my data entry in access, but would need some formulas like excel can do. The second challenge is that the company I work for uses word perfect, so I would have to develop a comparable sale sheet which matches what we have currently, then maybe drop in as an image.

Of course, I would also like to be able to use access like costar to run comp searches and have a simple way to print comps. Is there any easy way to do that? If it seems too technical to run a search and print comps, I can't likely get people in my office to buy into it.

Do you see that as a possibility?

 

[GregoryK]

Absolutely possible. I used to have MS access set up to even manage photos, and maps. You set up a spreadsheet and merge your info into it. Then you can merge that I to WP. I even had a subject database integrated that merged subject info into the word doc. But that takes time and working knowledge of relational databases. Also, the security on newer versions of MS Office is problematic. For a of $1,000 you can purchase Datappraise and it's done for you

 

[VegasWayne]

I don't do commercial reports, but I have used Access extensively. I have used it to aid in the comparable selection for residential reports. It can be set up to give information that needs to be calculated from the MLS data, such as distance from the subject. Access can do almost all the calculations that you can do in Excel. The difference is that the formulas go in reports, queries and forms instead of tables. The only functions that Excel has that are lacking in Access are the advanced data analysis pack statistical functions and the median function. Median can easily be done by adding a VBA function. If you want a median function copy and paste the following into a module:

Option Explicit
Function Median(tName As String, fldName As String) As Single
Dim MedianDB As DAO.Database
Dim ssMedian As DAO.Recordset
Dim RCount As Integer, i As Integer, X As Double, y As Double, _
OffSet As Integer
Set MedianDB = CurrentDb()
Set ssMedian = MedianDB.OpenRecordset("SELECT [" & fldName & _
"] FROM [" & tName & "] WHERE [" & fldName & _
"] IS NOT NULL ORDER BY [" & fldName & "];")
'NOTE: To include nulls when calculating the median value, omit
'WHERE [" & fldName & "] IS NOT NULL from the example.
ssMedian.MoveLast
RCount% = ssMedian.RecordCount
X = RCount Mod 2
If X <> 0 Then
OffSet = ((RCount + 1) / 2) - 2
For i% = 0 To OffSet
ssMedian.MovePrevious
Next i
Median = ssMedian(fldName)
Else
OffSet = (RCount / 2) - 2
For i = 0 To OffSet
ssMedian.MovePrevious
Next i
X = ssMedian(fldName)
ssMedian.MovePrevious
y = ssMedian(fldName)
Median = (X + y) / 2
End If
If Not ssMedian Is Nothing Then
ssMedian.Close
Set ssMedian = Nothing
End If
Set MedianDB = Nothing
End Function