ilu Word, but srsly WTF???

October 3, 2007 3:18 PM

I'm looking for software that will help me finish contracts and proposals faster. Preferably free, but if the software is good, I'm down for making my frugal employer pay. Lil' help?

For contracts and proposals, my company uses a Word document. Ok, fine, yes, whatever. But it takes forever to fill in and then you have to align everything because one contract will have one item and the next will have 20. Or needs more wording on this line, which kicks everything down to another line and ruins the alignment again. And then it has limitations and sometimes has a stuck-up Gates attitude. Bitch.

Is there any software out there that you guys know of that can help me with my contracts? I have no issues using contract templates with software - I've actually been asked to revamp our current contract layout, so that works out.

I just want to boot up a program, plug in the numbers I need and any additional information, preview and print. Any thoughts?

Cheap is good, free is better, but will pay for quality, of course.

posted by damnjezebel to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Could you do this in html? Like have simple php variables represent the values you want to change. Then, the body is in html, with the php variables embedded.

When you want to change a field, you just substitute that value in.

This would work for simple contracts, but how complicated are yours?
posted by unexpected at 5:01 PM on October 3, 2007

What industry are you in? I am in Real Estate and this online service is pretty much exactly like what you are looking for. I use it at my office and it is sooooo much better than trying to do contracts in Word. It seems like they are Real Estate specific though.
posted by Bjkokenos at 5:04 PM on October 3, 2007

I can't speak to it from personal experience, but I've been looking into something similar for my job and I'm planning to get Dataprompter.
posted by katemonster at 8:09 PM on October 3, 2007

Unexpected, that was... unexpected. And I think it might work. However, I know nothing - NUSSEEEEEN! - about php. Can you point me to anyone/thing that can help me out?

Bjkokenos, that looks like just what I need - obviously not for real estate, though. I work for an event planning company, and on some contracts they just need a dj, and others they need the whole shebang. Word's just worn out it's welcome at this point. Such a beating.

katemonster (as in "the internet is for porn" katemonster?), Dataprompter might work, too. I'm now looking for a demo of it or at least a trial version - my cheap ass boss won't pony up the hundo+ for a program if she can't actually use it first.
posted by damnjezebel at 9:24 PM on October 3, 2007

i've used Autohotkey for things like this, built my own gui, with drop downs/checkboxes, etc.... and then when you hit submit the document is drawn as expected - you just have to figure out the proper spacing and such once... and then it's done. Now it's not been anything complicated, but I know AHK has many more features than I know how to exploit.... so I'm certain it can be done.
posted by TuxHeDoh at 9:26 AM on October 4, 2007

The internet is not for porn!! Normal people don't sit at home and look at porn on the internet!

Yup, that's the one.
posted by katemonster at 9:09 AM on October 5, 2007