How do you add dropdowns in word using excel as data source?

[BitsofColour]

I am trying to simplify our fax form in word. We have several locations
across the US and you have to hunt down everyone's name and fax# when you
need to send out a fax. I am trying to incorporate dropdown boxes where you
could select from a particular row source in excel to populate the name and
then this would auto-populate the fax# field.

Is this possible?

 

[Keme]

I am trying to simplify our fax form in word. We have several locations
across the US and you have to hunt down everyone's name and fax# when you
need to send out a fax. I am trying to incorporate dropdown boxes where you
could select from a particular row source in excel to populate the name and
then this would auto-populate the fax# field.

Is this possible?

There is a way, but it is not clean and tidy.

Create the Excel list of names and fax numbers.
Activate autofilter on the list.
Select a single element.
Save it.
Copy the list with headings (ctrl+C)
Open your fax form
Paste special, Excel object with link.

Now you can double click on the excel object in the form, and select in
the list. If you get a "Save?" question, answer "no".

I haven't tested it thoroughly, so I'm not sure if this works with
multiple concurrent users. At least they have to have the same path
(disk mapping) to the Excel sheet.

For "Clean and tidy" you can use a Word form, but with that, updating
the table can be rather tedious. You can probably write a macro to pick
the list from the Excel sheet. You must at least write a macro to
populate the fax number field, if it's not connected (in which case you
can use one single field containing the string of name and fax number).