"Pleading paper" in Excel?

I need to be able to print Excel data so that it looks like it was printed on
"pleading paper" (this term will be well-known to legal-types. It mostly
involves having an incrementing line number appear at the left edge of the
paper, on every other line. There also has to be a double line at the right
edge of the line-number cells, but I know how to accomplish that part!) The
line numbers need to restart with every new page, and this is where I am
running into problems.

For each worksheet in a book, I want the first 9 rows to repeat at the top
of each page. I figured out how to do that (File/Page Setup/Sheet...), and I
also repeated the first (leftmost) column on every page. I manually formatted
the first 9 rows with "pleading paper" number information as well. Hoping to
use that as a starting point, I tried to use a formula like this in the first
column of the remaining (data) rows:

=IF(CELL("contents",A9)="","",A9+1)

.... attempting to use the pattern set up by the first nine rows to number
the rest of each page. This worked fine for the first page, but it just kept
on incrementing the numbers on each successive page. Obviously, the process
of inserting the "9 rows" takes place at print time, and so this formula
fails. I tried variations on the theme of the formula above before realizing
this.

I figure I'm not the first person in the world to need to do this; but all
my searches so far have been fruitless. Of course, MS Word has a Pleading
Wizard that automates this whole process; and I suppose I COULD import all
the Excel data into Word, and let Word format it into Pleading form. However,
I need to also submit the data in Excel to show other calculations, and it
would just be much more convenient to just keep everything in Excel. I would
be willing to consider accomplishing this using a template or macro, as well
as a formulaic solution.

Thanks,
GB

How about printing blank "pleading" formatted pages in Word, and then
*reuse* the paper to print the XL portion?
--
HTH,

RD

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"geebee" wrote in message
...
I need to be able to print Excel data so that it looks like it was printed
on
"pleading paper" (this term will be well-known to legal-types. It mostly
involves having an incrementing line number appear at the left edge of the
paper, on every other line. There also has to be a double line at the
right
edge of the line-number cells, but I know how to accomplish that part!)
The
line numbers need to restart with every new page, and this is where I am
running into problems.

For each worksheet in a book, I want the first 9 rows to repeat at the top
of each page. I figured out how to do that (File/Page Setup/Sheet...), and
I
also repeated the first (leftmost) column on every page. I manually
formatted
the first 9 rows with "pleading paper" number information as well. Hoping
to
use that as a starting point, I tried to use a formula like this in the
first
column of the remaining (data) rows:

=IF(CELL("contents",A9)="","",A9+1)

... attempting to use the pattern set up by the first nine rows to number
the rest of each page. This worked fine for the first page, but it just
kept
on incrementing the numbers on each successive page. Obviously, the
process
of inserting the "9 rows" takes place at print time, and so this formula
fails. I tried variations on the theme of the formula above before
realizing
this.

I figure I'm not the first person in the world to need to do this; but all
my searches so far have been fruitless. Of course, MS Word has a Pleading
Wizard that automates this whole process; and I suppose I COULD import all
the Excel data into Word, and let Word format it into Pleading form.
However,
I need to also submit the data in Excel to show other calculations, and it
would just be much more convenient to just keep everything in Excel. I
would
be willing to consider accomplishing this using a template or macro, as
well
as a formulaic solution.

Thanks,
GB

"Ragdyer" wrote...
How about printing blank "pleading" formatted pages in Word, and then
*reuse* the paper to print the XL portion?
....

Some printers' paper feeds get fouled when trying to use sheets of paper
that already have ink on them. That and it can be a PITA to get printout
rows aligned correctly on preprinted forms.

"geebee" wrote...
....
on incrementing the numbers on each successive page. Obviously, the process
of inserting the "9 rows" takes place at print time, and so this formula
fails. I tried variations on the theme of the formula above before
realizing
this.

How many lines on a page?

I figure I'm not the first person in the world to need to do this; . . .

Don't be too sure. Simple enough to add tables to Word documents, so
difficult to see the sense of doing any of this in Excel rather than
entirely in Word.

MSWord actually has a Pleading Template Wizard (at least MSWord 2003 does).



Harlan Grove wrote:

"geebee" wrote...
...
on incrementing the numbers on each successive page. Obviously, the process
of inserting the "9 rows" takes place at print time, and so this formula
fails. I tried variations on the theme of the formula above before
realizing
this.

How many lines on a page?

I figure I'm not the first person in the world to need to do this; . . .

Don't be too sure. Simple enough to add tables to Word documents, so
difficult to see the sense of doing any of this in Excel rather than
entirely in Word.

--

Dave Peterson

OP stated he preferred not to use that, I suggested he use it to print
"form" and re-use to print XL data, Harlan said it was bad idea, so I guess
that everybody sort of knew about it.vbg
--

Regards,

RD
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit !
--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dave Peterson" wrote in message
...
MSWord actually has a Pleading Template Wizard (at least MSWord 2003 does).



Harlan Grove wrote:

"geebee" wrote...
...
on incrementing the numbers on each successive page. Obviously, the
process
of inserting the "9 rows" takes place at print time, and so this formula
fails. I tried variations on the theme of the formula above before
realizing
this.

How many lines on a page?

I figure I'm not the first person in the world to need to do this; . . .

Don't be too sure. Simple enough to add tables to Word documents, so
difficult to see the sense of doing any of this in Excel rather than
entirely in Word.

--

Dave Peterson

RagDyeR wrote...
OP stated he preferred not to use that, . . .

There are occasions on which OPs need to be told to rethink their
assumptions/preconceived notions. This is one of those occasions.

Actually, not so much! I didn't go into great detail about WHY I need to keep
the data in Excel, because I didn't think it was relevant to the Forum. The
fact is, I do. This is a court-required accounting, and they (the court
investigator) needs to review the calculations in the raw Excel data. He
isn't all that technically advanced, and just the IDEA of sending him a Word
document with links to an Excel spreadsheet... [shudder].

Apparently, attorneys are asked to do this (submit data in Excel) a lot. I
was hoping someone would have already worked out a solution for it. It may
well be that most attorneys do what RagDyer suggested: printing out
pleading-paper "forms" using Word, and then printing Excel data over top.
Harlan is right about issues with printer jams and non-alignment with
preprinted data ("registration errors"); however, I regularly see briefs come
out of attorney's offices which were clearly done in Word, but the text
doesn't line up with the line numbers because somebody switched a font or
font size!! So apparently the courts are somewhat tolerant of such errors. It
would be interesting to see if there was a correlation between papers filed
this way and cases lost....

But back to the problem: I'm very sure that there is a way to detect a Page
Break through Visual Basic. It's probably some facet of the Page object, but
I'm not enough of a programmer to figure it out (or at least, not easily!)
Assuming that Page Breaks CAN be detected through VB, presumably one could
write a Macro to fill the first column of a Worksheet with appropriate
numbers. Any of you wikked programmers want to take a shot at it?? I can pay
(not too much) for a solution...

Thanks,
GB

"Harlan Grove" wrote:

RagDyeR wrote...
OP stated he preferred not to use that, . . .

There are occasions on which OPs need to be told to rethink their
assumptions/preconceived notions. This is one of those occasions.

"geebee" wrote...
....
The fact is, I do. This is a court-required accounting, and they (the
court investigator) needs to review the calculations in the raw Excel
data. He isn't all that technically advanced, and just the IDEA of
sending him a Word document with links to an Excel spreadsheet...

O/T asking why accounting information would need to appear in the form of a
legal pleading rather than as an unformatted appendix to a legal pleading.

However, I wasn't suggesting links to an Excel worksheet in a Word document.
I was suggesting using Word tables instead of Excel. If the calculations in
question are accounting-based, the most sophisticated calculations would be
discounting, no?


Apparently, attorneys are asked to do this (submit data in Excel) a lot.
....

Don't you mean data _from_ Excel?

Isn't this one of the things secretaries get paid to do?

Now to try to be helpful. If you're filing hardcopy with courts, the courts
aren't going to care whether you printed from Word, Excel or The Ambulance
Chaser Suite. Print the Excel workbooks to *TEXT* files or save them as text
files, open those text files in Word's legal pleading template, print from
there as hardcopy. I suspect this is how other firms do it. No good purpose
served trying to reinvent the wheel.

Harlan Grove wrote:
"geebee" wrote...
...

The fact is, I do. This is a court-required accounting, and they (the
court investigator) needs to review the calculations in the raw Excel
data. He isn't all that technically advanced, and just the IDEA of
sending him a Word document with links to an Excel spreadsheet...


O/T asking why accounting information would need to appear in the form of a
legal pleading rather than as an unformatted appendix to a legal pleading.

However, I wasn't suggesting links to an Excel worksheet in a Word document.
I was suggesting using Word tables instead of Excel. If the calculations in
question are accounting-based, the most sophisticated calculations would be
discounting, no?



Apparently, attorneys are asked to do this (submit data in Excel) a lot.

...

Don't you mean data _from_ Excel?

Isn't this one of the things secretaries get paid to do?

Now to try to be helpful. If you're filing hardcopy with courts, the courts
aren't going to care whether you printed from Word, Excel or The Ambulance
Chaser Suite. Print the Excel workbooks to *TEXT* files or save them as text
files, open those text files in Word's legal pleading template, print from
there as hardcopy. I suspect this is how other firms do it. No good purpose
served trying to reinvent the wheel.


Recognizing that you do indeed mean *in* Excel (for the convenience of
the court investigator), and that like many attorneys, particularly
those with small practices, you don't have or don't always use a
secretary, perhaps you could just make an Excel template of blank
pleading paper numbered from 1 to, I assume, 26. Then you can enter
onto the template the first 9 rows of data and, if it's usually the same
attorney information and court, save that as a second template to be
used for first pages of pleadings; or have the first 9 rows entered on
an Excel formatted 9-row template and simply copy-paste that data to the
first page of the 26-line pleading paper.

On your first-page template you could even include formatting for the
parties and caption, though that's a little trickier; but handy once
you've worked it out.

Another approach, if the court's rules do permit an accounting appendix
on other than pleading paper, is to do the pleading paper in word and
the appendix in Excel and provide just the appendix in electronic form
to the court investigator.

Good luck,
Alan Beban