Create Edit Form Format

Office Accelerator includes a powerful add-in called the Accelerator Macro Suite (AMS). To create a customized merge Form in Office Accelerator using AMS, follow the directions below.

Creating a New Merge Form

1. Open the Office Accelerator phone book and click the |Tools| menu, then select |Word Processor| to open Microsoft Word.

   If word doesn't open via |Tools|Word Processor|, see Word Processor Path.

2. From your Word document, click the |ADD-INS| tab, then click |Accelerator|Create or Edit|Form Format|.

   

3. The |Business Form Document Formats| dialog box provides the pre-defined merge documents that ship with Office Accelerator. When you design a custom form template, you will start by selecting one of these pre-defined formats. In this example we'll use the 'Packing Slip' document , select |Packing Slip| then click the |Create New| button. Enter a unique name for 'your' new custom form format, in this example we'll call it 'Custom Packing Slip'. Click the |OK| button to save your settings.

   

   By default your new form document will be created for use by just you (Personal Format), however if you would like to share the form document with other Accelerator users, select the |Public Format| option. Public format documents are stored in the location determined by your user defined public document path.

4. Click |OK| to the message reminding you to save your changes.

   

5. Office Accelerator will now display your form merge document in Word.

   

6. The Accelerator form merge document is just like any Word document in that you can add and delete text and images as well as modify the formatting and layout of the document. What makes this document unique is that it contains merge and substitution fields which are used to insert information from Office Accelerator into your form. You decide what and where in your document information from Accelerator will be merged by placing merge and substitution fields in the desired location.

   

   Substitution fields are surrounded by ( ) characters and merge fields by << >> characters.

7. In the example below, we have added some custom merge fields to include a packing slip number and customer number. These fields are denoted as <<Custom1>> & <<Custom2>> respectively. Because Office Accelerator provides the ability to create custom fields and merge them to any document, Custom1 and Custom2 are mapped to custom fields in Accelerator that we created to store a packing slip number and customer number. Once you have completed modifying 'your' form, be sure and click the |Save| button, then close the merge document.

   

   Because the merge document contains special attributes that work with Accelerator, be sure NOT to change the name or location of your document. Simply press the |Save| button in Word to save your changes.

Using Your New Custom Form

1. To use the new custom form document you created above, open Microsoft Word and click |Accelerator|Multiple Forms| located under the |Add-Ins| tab.

   

2. The Accelerator menu will return you to the Accelerator phone book where you can search for the contacts you would like to send to your form. Click the |Continue Forms| button to proceed, all contacts in the current search result will be merged to your 'Custom Packing Slip' form document.

   

3. There are 6 sections in the |Multiple Form Options| screen. The |Multiple Form Options| screen corresponds to the merge fields in your 'Custom Packing Slip' merge document. Be sure and select the 'Custom Packing Slip' form in Section - 1 as this is the form we modified above, the remaining sections are optional. Click the |Continue| button to proceed to the next step.

   

   Section - 2 is used to specify the date, Section - 3 the sales person (not used with Packing Slip form), Section - 4 return address, Section - 5 postal formatting (postal formatting is now deprecated), and Section - 6 is used to create a log item for each contact merged to the packing slip form.

4. By default, your 'Custom Packing Slip' will be sent to your word processor. Typically, you'll want to use the |Display in Word Processor| option so you can view your forms prior to printing in the event you need to make changes. You can also print the forms directly to your default printer or select an alternate printer. Accelerator will merge all of the contacts that are in the current search result to your form document, however, you can use the range option and designate a specific range of contacts to merge from the current search result. Make sure the |Display in Word Processor| option is selected and click the |Continue| button.

   

5. When the merge in complete, your 'Custom Packing Slip' will be created in Word. Each contact in the current search result will be merged to your 'Custom Packing Slip' where it can then be printed.

   

Form Formats that Ship with Accelerator