Automate update of screenshots in Word

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Ocean - 19 May 2006 11:52 GMT

I am looking to create dedicated user manuals in Word for a software product.
The only trouble is, is that I also need to produce customised screenshots as
well. The manuals could be up to 100+ pages with lots of screenshots. My
question is this - is it possible to create some form of 'hotspot' on the
screenshots and replace/update the wording according to the name of the
customer I am creating the manual for? The screenshots will only differ in
the 'blue heading' at the top of the software application.
Can anyone recommend the best method to go about this?

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Jonathan West - 19 May 2006 12:25 GMT

>I am looking to create dedicated user manuals in Word for a software
>product.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> the 'blue heading' at the top of the software application.
> Can anyone recommend the best method to go about this?

It's not really going to work the way you would ideally like - presumably to
do a search/replace of the text in the caption. As I'm sure you are aware,
screenshots are bitmap graphics.

The best I can think of is as follows

1. Use a program such as SnagIt! to make it as easy as possible to create
large numbers of screenshots fairly quickly and have each saved as a
separate file.

2. Select each screenshot in turn in your document and replace it with the
new version. You might save time in this by writing a macro to ensure that
the new graphic is automatically set to the same size as the one it is
replacing.

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Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
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Helmut Weber - 19 May 2006 13:24 GMT

Hi Ocean,

maybe changing the application's caption,
before creating the screenshots,
might please you and your customers.

like:

Application.Caption = "Word for Customer X"

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Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
"red.sys" & Chr$(64) & "t-online.de"

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Ocean - 19 May 2006 14:59 GMT

I may need to do this for every screenshot for every new customer - which is
impractical. I was wondering if I could edit the image - so it has ablank
blue bar at the top, then possible use Word to paste the customer name in
using some link/hotspot if this is possible. The main problem is that I wont
have to do this once but it may need to be done many times - and I cant spend
the time re-capturing the screenshot every time.

> Hi Ocean,
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Application.Caption = "Word for Customer X"

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Jonathan West - 19 May 2006 15:22 GMT

>I may need to do this for every screenshot for every new customer - which
>is
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> spend
> the time re-capturing the screenshot every time.

I would recommend that you do the user guide screenshots with some generic
title for the captions and not bother trying to customize the user guide for
every single customer. Any other option I suspect is going to be
prohibitively expensive in time & effort.

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Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
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Jezebel - 20 May 2006 05:37 GMT

You could position a textbox over the top of the graphic, with a DocProperty
field that you set to the customer name. You can maybe set the font and
background colours to create an acceptable effect (you're unlikely to be
able to match the underlying graphic). Or design the problem out: crop the
title bar from the graphic.

>I may need to do this for every screenshot for every new customer - which
>is
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>>
>> Application.Caption = "Word for Customer X"

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