Automate your Word documents using SolveXia

Introduction

While you are probably aware that SolveXia can easily ingest and process your Excel spreadsheets, Access databases and SQL Server (managed tables), you may be surprised to learn that you can also copy data into your Word documents and templates.

This can help you to automate the preparation of things like board reports or other reporting that requires outputs to be in Word format.

SolveXia has pre-configured instructions for manipulating Word documents. These include instructions to:

Import charts from Excel to a Word document as picture
Import data from Excel (including tables and values from a cell) to Word
Publish chart data from Excel (to a chart in Word)
Convert a Word document to PDF

How to manipulate Word documents in SolveXia (Example)

In the example below, a company prepares a monthly report showing the amount of stock they exported to the different regions of the world. The key metrics for the report are first calculated in a spreadsheet that looks like this:

The chart from the Excel file (above) is then copied to a Word document (see below) along with some key variables such as the reporting date:

Step 1: Create bookmarks in the target Word document

To automatically copy the data from Excel to Word using SolveXia, you first need to create bookmarks in the Word document. These bookmarks will act as targets for the data that is to be copied from the Excel file (learn how to create bookmarks). The screenshot below shows where the bookmarks will be placed in the Word document:

Step 2: Use the SolveXia instructions to copy data from Excel to the relevant bookmark

Continuing on from the example above, we will first update the reporting date in the Word document. To do this, we will use the Import data from Excel to Word instruction, configured as shown below:

The Import Chart From Excel to Word Document as Picture instruction can be used to copy the chart from the Excel workbook as a picture into the Word document: