Innovative Creation of TOC for Action Items from Meeting Minutes

[Nadiknit]

Hi,

I have recently come arcoss a Notes of Meeting document where th
creator managed to summarise the 'Actions Items' agreed upon in a tabl
of contents, and this table is a multi-column table!

Unfortunately, I only have the PDF version of the document, so I can'
know how they've done it.

In short this is how the document looks like:

1.1. Discussion of Item 1 of the Agenda

01 / Company 1 / 06-06-2012 / Company 1 to updat
Notes of Meeting

1.2 Discussion of Item 2 of the Agenda

02 / Company 2 / 31-12-2012 / Company 2 to provid
data

Etc.

The 01 and 02 entries are 'Action Items' from the Notes of Meeting.
Maybe they are fields or they are outline levels or styles i
multi-column fields in a single-row, 4-column table, i can't know. Bu
what i do know is that they are formatted in a way that allows them t
populate the multi-column table of contents at the beginning of th
document, which looks like this:

Action No. / Action On / Due Date / Action Required


This table of contents (don't know if it is formatted as a multi-colum
or as gridded table), lists all the actions in the same manner as the
appear below the item discussions, i.e. they appear as rows.

I tried to format the 'Action Items' entries in the document as styles
as table entries using the TC field code (which is hidden, i.e. useles
in this case), and as outline levels. I also tried columns. None of thi
worked. Searched a lot of forums, watched a lot of tutorials, an
learned very useful things on field codes, but I couldn't resolve th
issue of:

How to transform 'Action Items' into a tabulated listing that update
automatically? So far, i have formatted notes of meeting manually, an
it's been a painful exercise because the summarised table has to b
visited every time a change is made to the 'Action Items' listed under
discussion.

Apologies for the long-windedness.

Is there anybody in this forum who has faced a similar issue and manage
to resolve it? I'm sure it can be done, but I need someone to tell m
how, please.

Thanks
Nadikni

 

[Lisa Wilke-Thissen]

Hi,

"Nadiknit" wrote

01 / Company 1 / 06-06-2012 / Company 1 to update Notes of Meeting
02 / Company 2 / 31-12-2012 / Company 2 to provide data

maybe, the entries are separated by tabs. Item 01, item 02 are two
paragraphs formatted with the same style (e.g. one of the Headings or a
custom style).
In the TOC field you have to suppress page numbers by a switch (/n),
and you have to preserve the tabs by a switch (/w). The TOC field then
should look like this:
{ TOC \t "CustomStyle;1" \n \w }

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The TOC style would also have to have a hanging indent at the tab position
to handle runover lines.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Nadiknit]

Thank you very much Lisa and Suzanne. It worked!! I only replaced th
semi-colon with a comma.

I still have a problem with the tabbing, runover text, and keeping th
runover text in place in the main Action Item (styled) and in the TO
(uses the field code with the w field switch).

So, I have

No. (tab) Action (tab) Responsibility (tab) Observations (tab) Status


Action and Observations tend to runover. To my knowledge, hanging inden
works once (i.e. for one of the four tabs in my case). So, what metho
allows to keep runover text under Action AND under Observations in th
main text? Then, how to apply this method to the TOC as well?

Cheers
Nadiknit

 

[Lisa Wilke-Thissen]

Hi,

only replaced the semi-colon with a comma.

sorry, I forgot to mention that I am using a German version ...

No. (tab) Action (tab) Responsibility (tab) Observations (tab) Status
So, what method allows to keep runover text under Action AND
under Observations in the main text? Then, how to apply this
method to the TOC as well?

I think, there is no chance at all. The only way would be to place the
entries within table cells.
But there is no way to split the TOC paragraphs automatically and put
the items into different cells.