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This Microsoft Word Tips & Microsoft Word Help page introduces "DocBunder." DocBundler is a document automation process developed by former Word MVP Greg Maxey (me). It consists of a central Data Sheet template containing VBA processing instructions, and a set of related templates that you can customize and use to create sets (or "bundles") of Word Documents that draw data from the Data Sheet.

For example, consider a "Settlement Statement" from a mortgage company. This type of form is often accompanied by a half a dozen or so additional forms where each shares common data (i.e., borrower's name, addresses, loan numbers, loan amount, etc.).

Rather than prepare each form individually, you can use a custom Data Sheet template to collect the required data for all of the related forms and a set of custom document templates to generate the Settlement Statement and related forms as a bundled document set automatically.

To illustrate this process, you can down load one of two (or both) zip packages that comes with a DocBundler description and instructions document, a simplified demonstration "Data Sheet" template (Data Sheet.dot), and three simple form templates "Main Form.dot," "Supplemental Form 1.dot" and "Supplemental Form 2.dot." 

One package contains Word97-2003 .dot templates (works with Word 2007-2010), the other package was developed for Word 2007-2010 to employ the new content controls. Download:  Word 2003  and/or Word 2007-2010.

Follow these steps to create your first bundled document set:

1. Create a new sub-folder in your Word template directory. Name this folder "Document Bundle"
2. Unzip and place the files you downloaded into this folder.

3. Create a new sub-folder in your documents directory to store the bundled document sets that you will create. Name this sub-folder "Loans," "Properties," or "Clients," or whatever suits your needs. For example, you might create a folder:

4. Open Word and create a new Data Sheet document based on the Data Sheet template.
5. When the document opens, a setup interface will display. Use the browse buttons on this interface to select both the template and storage folder you created previously. Save your selections.

Notes:
    1.The setup displays automatically on first use. Thereafter it can be displayed using the "Setup" command on the menu incorporated with the Data Sheet template.

    2. You can rename your template and bundled document folders created in steps 1 and 3 anything you like before saving the setup.

6. Enter a "Bundle ID" in the first formfield. This is a mandatory field.

• The Bundle ID must be a unique identifier. When you exit the formfield, Word creates a new sub-folder in the storage folder that you defined using Setup. Each bundled set will have its own unique folder. If your storage folder is "…\Clients" then the BundleID chosen for a group of clients might be "Joe Adams 1234," "Bob Smith 3456," "Anne Jones 9898," "Bob Smith 1345," etc., where the ID is the clients name and last four digits of the SSN.
• When you exit the formfield Word saves the new document in the unique folder you created using the Bundle ID as a prefix to the document name. For example, if your defined bundle storage folder is "C:\Documents …\Word\Documents\Clients" and you used "Bob Smith" as the Bundle ID, Word will save the new document as "C:\Documents …\Word\Documents\Clients\Bob Smith\Bob Smith Data Sheet.doc"

7. Fill in the remaining formfields in the Data Sheet.
8. When all fields are completed, you create the set of bundled documents using the "Create Bundle" command on the "Document Bundle" menu. When you click on this command:

• Word creates a new document based on each template in your designated template folder. In this demonstration, Word will automatically create a new Main Form, Supplemental Form 1 and Supplemental Form 2 based on their respective templates and the data entered in the Data Sheet.
• During processing Word closes and saves new document in the designated Bundle ID folder.
• The Data Sheet remains open as the active document when the process is complete.

Create bundle


Bundled documents created


Example bundled document

9. If changes are required to any of the form data you can edit the bundled documents automatically by opening the unique Data Sheet document for that bundle, making the changes and then use the "Update Bundle" command on the "Document Bundle" menu.

Creating your own template:

Now that you have seen the working example, the next step to creating your own custom process is simple.

• Open the Data Sheet template.

• Add formfields (or modify the existing formfields) using a unique "bookmark" ID for each required data element formfield.

Note: DO NOT alter or modify the BundleID formfield

• Save the Data Sheet template.

• Create a form template for each required form.

• Insert bookmarks with names corresponding to the Data Sheet formfield bookmark names at each location requiring a data input from the data sheet.
• If a data element is required multiple times on a given form, then insert the bookmark at the first instance and then insert REF fields that reference that bookmark at the other instance locations.  See Repeating Data.

• That is all there is to it. You can now create your own bundled document sets simply by creating a new Data Sheet document based on your custom Data Sheet template and creating the bundle using your custom templates and the Create Bundle menu command.

Note: This tips page, illustrations and examples were developed using Word 2003. It is wholly functional with Word 2007-2010 (menu commands propagate on the Add-Ins tab).

Working with Word 2007-2010

The Word2007 version uses a custom ribbon tab "Bundler" in lieu of a "Document Bundler" menu command. It also incorporates the new content controls for entering data.

There is a bug in Word 2007 content controls that precludes setting the focus in the content control automatically or making a direct selection. The Data Sheet in the Word 2007-2010 package contains a "Double-click here to start" MacroButton field in the document. Double-click as indicated in the template to set focus in a content control titled "Bundle ID."

That's it! I hope you have found this tips page useful and informative. Special thanks to friend and Word MVP Graham Mayor for his dogged development reviews and criticism which led to many improvements.

This page was last updated on March 09, 2021

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