Excel programming challenge

Is there a way to accomplish this?

Formulae exist in an Excel spreadsheet, linked to a Word document (a standard letter that extracts the results from the Excel cells). We want user online to fill in a web-based form, these data to be processed according to formulae in Excel sheet and then a standard document (Word or similarly formatted) is emailed to the person containing just the results from the Excel cells. At no point will the person have access to original Excel or Word files.

The Excel and Word documents will change frequently.

It is desirable if there is a way to simply upload the Excel and Word docs and the online form and all other aspects of the system will change automatically to reflect these changes.

1. Person fills in form
2. Server processes data from that form and generated answers 3. Person is emailed a standard document with the answers in place

I think you're going to have problems that way. I'm not familiar with how Excel updates Word and other documents, but I should imagine that any changes are only going to show up when you open the Word file; not when you attach it as an email.

The way I'd do it is to have your formulas etc as a seperate include file for ease of updating, and use some sort of 3rd party compnent to generate documents (Word, PDF etc) on the fly. There are a number of these about, I believe you can get free ones, and most will allow you to open an existing template document and add the data that your form / ASP processing has produced. You can then send the document off in the usual manner.

Any help?

Thanks for your response. I am still looking for a more specific answer.

I appreciate your time nonetheless!

As stated in the previous reply, Excel and Word will only update on file open, Excel has the capability to prompt for updates to external links on file open.
You can use macros in both Word and Excel, to run on document open that will help automate your updates.
With your word doc, you can use the forms properties, bookmarked to change values.
Using VB scripting in html, you can create a Word Object, as a starting point use this link

http://www.devguru.com/Technologies.../createobj.html

Hope this helps.