Automative writing application

[Your_Shrink]

I am wondering if anyone knows of an app or software that will assist me in this work-related endeavor. I write a lot of reports and would love to identify a way to automize this process to be more time efficient and practical. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way (besides using excel) to create a list of criterion that can individually be selected or de-selected and converted into a sentence/paragraph format.

Here is a simple example with content to give an idea of what I'm trying to do:

Database Entry -

Name: Bob

Color Selections:
-Red
-White
-Blue
-Green

Pattern/Appearance:
-Matte
-Glossy
-Dull

I want to be able to select Bob's preferences (i.e., green, blue, and red, glossy) and have it produce text like:

Output -

Bob selected a preference for the following colors: green, blue, and red. He noted a preference for a glossy appearance.

Being able to do this would drastically reduce the amount of time I spend writing reports, while also allowing me to greater personalize the report content (adding specific individual details), as I would not have to spend time writing up the regular content. I'm open to any and all options, regardless of the required systems (I use apple products and home and PC at work).

Thanks for any help or guidance!

 

[Slartibart]

You want to insert all entries for color and appearance or is it required to select one or more entries from the data (your output example suggests that)?

E.g. Word on the Mac offers Autotext and under Windows it offers something called Building Block Content Controls. How this is handled depends on the version of Word. Building blocks in Autotext can be easily reused by saving a template.

Then there are tools like Scribusgenerator which allows merging of all kinds of data into a scribus document/PDF.

Or you try Pages Data Merge together with Apple Pages.

if the number of “database entries” is small you could also easily define appropriate shortcuts in the keyboard preferences of the Mac you want to use.

 

[Your_Shrink]

In that example I would have different categories for each sentence. I looked into building blocks and don't think it will do what I need. I may need to just go with excel, but it is super clunky. Thanks for your response though!

 

[neutrino23]

Can you clarify a bit? Each time you will type all of the information and then have it recast as a few sentences? Or you will just type "Bob" and have something find his preferences and generate the text? Do you have thousands of people to accommodate or just a handful?

 

[Madmic23]

Are you writing basically the same thing, but adding specific details per document? In that case, you could use a Mail Merge in Word. All of your details would be in an Excel sheet. You'd write your standard document, and then you'd click the Mail Merge button. Instead of adding fields for mailing addresses, you'd be adding fields for Name, Color Selection, Pattern/Appearance, etc.

Once you add your fields, you'd click the Merge button to add in all of your details and you're done. You could also edit the individual documents afterwards if you needed to tweak them a bit more.

 

[cdcastillo]

Or you could use Typinator, TextExpander or some other text expansion tool. They are not exactly what you're asking for, but would be easily adapted to your needs and would cut a lot of the time you invest in typing up your reports.