Using a drop down menu or macro to change clipart

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ian@spinningfish.net - 09 Nov 2006 14:55 GMT

I have a report template that uses clipart of traffic lights to show
project status. I'd like to be able to change those bits of clipart
either by means of a drop down form list (i.e. the list effectively has
graphics options instead of text, if you see what I mean) or macros to
insert the different bits of clipart via a toolbar button.

Any ideas how I can do this?

Thanks,

Ian

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Jay Freedman - 09 Nov 2006 15:05 GMT

The easiest method is to make an AutoText entry from each image, using the
same paragraph style for all of them (preferably a new style that isn't used
for anything else). Then make an AutoTextList field to display the images,
and you can click it to select a different one from the list. See
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/AutoTextList.htm for details.

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Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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> I have a report template that uses clipart of traffic lights to show
> project status. I'd like to be able to change those bits of clipart
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Ian

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Ian K Gray - 09 Nov 2006 16:12 GMT

Jay,

That's fantastic, thanks. Only one niggle with that - when I send that
template to others to use, if they right click on the field they get a
list of all auto-text entries, not just the ones for that template. How
can I fix this?

Ian

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Jay Freedman - 09 Nov 2006 21:47 GMT

Hi Ian,

That isn't the expected behavior (that's a genteel expression for "what the
#$%?").

Did you create a new style in your template that's used only for these
AutoText entries (step 6 in the article)? Is the style's name something
that's unlikely to exist in any other template?

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Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

> Jay,
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Ian

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Ian K Gray - 10 Nov 2006 08:40 GMT

> Did you create a new style in your template that's used only for these
> AutoText entries (step 6 in the article)? Is the style's name something
> that's unlikely to exist in any other template?

Yes, absolutely. After some investigation it seems that the entries are
appearing in my normal.dot template, rather than the template for the
report (report.dot). If I move them from normal.dot to report.dot, I
too get all autotext entries when I first start Word and a new doc
based on report.dot. If I then go into Organiser or something similar
and select to see entries from report.dot, the behaviour of the
right-click list is as expected - but only until I restart Word again.

Stranger than strange!

Where *should* the autotext entries be - normal.dot, or report.dot, or
both?

Ian

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Ian K Gray - 10 Nov 2006 09:47 GMT

OK, fixed it. Not sure what I did wrong, but I redid the whole thing
and it works ok now. The key thing that was in the wrong place (I
believe) was the final autotext entry - "product" in the original
example - which was in normal.dot rather than the report template.

Thanks for your help - great result!

Ian

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