I'm currently working on a template for job reports where data will be pulled from a text file. I need to be able to populate charts and tables from data sets of varying sizes. The text files will always have the same format however regarding number of columns and column titles. The charts will be simple bar charts. For example, depth on one axis & size on another. I made some chart templates in word. But they do not keep chart & axis titles, and I cannot change the data file source from which these templates read data. Previous versions of this report used a macro to import data into word. I was hoping someone could at least point me in the right direction regarding learning about this. I'm completely green when it comes to this.
Hi bud, First, I'm not super familiar with features available in MS Word when it comes to charts/tables, but I would drop Word and only use it towards the end when you're ready to prepare your finished product. In Excel (2007), I would use the External Data tools to "link" the raw data (your text file) to your workbook. If your text file is delimited, Excel will use the default field delimiter on your system to parse and display the linked data in a table format automatically. No macro would be needed unless the data in your text file needs to be parsed/cleaned before it can be linked to an Excel spreadsheet. Once the link is created, you no longer have to worry about importing data as Excel will take care of that. The text file will appear in your workbook as a regular worksheet that you can operate on. I'm not the greatest at explaining things but yeah, if you have questions feel free.