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I export some data (daily) from Access to Word and each time, I need to take certain formatting steps (about 6 steps) for the final Word Document.

Instead of going through each step, one by one, each time I export from Access, is there a way to 'save the 6 steps' into one lump and apply all of them with just a few clicks? Or if not save, copy from an existing source and paste to the new one? The "format painter" doesn't seem to take an entire block's formatting but just the first line's. So when I 'paste' the format, the formatting goes haywire.

This is roughly what I mean when I want to format an entire block:

[Header Style]
[Subtitle Style]

[Some data in a table with certain padding]

You might say why not have a template instead. Yes, possible but the exported data from Access is quite a lot and to copy / paste each to fit a certain template would be more tedious and time-consuming.

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    Not really what you're asking, but you can use VBA to dynamically replace text in a template word doc while maintaining the formatting. You basically set up the template file, then add a bookmark for each piece of data you want to bring over from acces. Then, in access, you write code to open the document, go to each bookmark, and replace the preformatted filler text with your data. It's kind of a pain, but it might solve your problem.
    – Dominic P
    Jan 10, 2014 at 8:09
  • Is it a fixed number of lines for each chunk of text? If so you could record a Macro to go through your formatting steps. If its not a fixed length this might still work but you would have to find a way of finding the start and end of each block of text.
    – Sam
    Jan 10, 2014 at 9:17
  • Do you use the export wizard? You should be able to export as objects and save the settings.. Jan 10, 2014 at 11:42
  • Ever heard of macros? Jan 11, 2014 at 0:38

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Create a Word template with merge fields that are formatted to your specifications and use the Access data as the merge source. Each time you need the data, just filter the records you need and pull it in that way. It shouldn't take much time to set up at all.

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