Robert Delwood

Robert Delwood is a senior systems analyst in the NASA Johnson Space Center community. He writes Microsoft Office solutions using VB/VBA and .NET's VSTO, helping departments automate their tasks, simple and complex. A writer turned programmer, he bridges the worlds of writing and technology.

Office automation is about making Office easier to use, quicker, and more accurate. It's not about programming. What it is, is anything that saves time and keystrokes. Viewed that way, there's no fewer than ten different techniques, and you're using some of them already. Copy and Paste is automation. It you still think automation is complex, use Word without copy and paste. And to think there are over 50 more predefined combinations like that. You quickly see its advantages. Another simple technique? Page numbers. It's also automation, since they're technically nothing more than just field codes. Those are predefined for you, and that makes them convenient to use. But you can define your own to do exactly what you want them to do. Furthermore, put them in Word template and you can share those with your group, department, or even the entire company

No, automation doesn't have to be difficult. In the current market of shrinking margins and a push for more productivity, you can make yourself invaluable by saving time with more accurate documents.