QuickBase: The Missing Manual

Chapter 12. Exact Forms: Creating Sophisticated Documents

QuickBase gives you some terrific ways to put your information to work. For example, you can display data in a bunch of different ways using reports, share information by email, print charts (Chart Reports), and export QuickBase data into other programs (Exporting Data). And even though QuickBase is an online database, there’s an easy way to get your data into routine business documents, like invoices and letters. By customizing a special template called an exact form, you can insert QuickBase data into a Microsoft Word document. Then, just like any document, you can format, print, and send it out into the world.

Exact forms let you insert your QuickBase data into the appropriate places in a letter, report, or invoice. If you’ve ever used Word’s mail merge tool to grab names and addresses from one source and place them in just the right spot in letters or on envelopes, you’ll feel right at home with exact forms. And while you can use QuickBase to do a mail merge, you can use exact forms to do a whole lot more. Consider the possibilities:

• Monthly invoices that automatically generate not just the total amount owed, but a list of current orders.

• Personalized sales or fundraising letters.

• Reports to shareholders or customers, presenting up-to-the-minute data.

• Progress reports that show the current status of a project’s open tasks, sorted and grouped by team member and priority, to distribute at weekly meetings.

Whatever information ...