Randomizing Questions in an Existing MS Word File

NOTE: These instructions are for MS Word 2003; while the same process can be used for Word 2007, the menu choices are a little different.

1. Begin by highlighting the text needing randomized.
   Text must be contiguous in order to be randomized later. Any additional text, such as manual page headers, will need to be removed temporarily. 
2. Next click Table > Convert > Text to Table
   A new window, “Convert Text to Table,’ will appear.
3. Ensure that the following settings are set at their default: 

• Table size – “Number of columns” set to 1
  NOTE: While we will add another column later, it is important to maintain the information as-is; thus, we choose only one column for now. 
• AutoFit behavior – “Fixed column width” is checked 
• Table style: (none) – Choose Paragraph from the “Separate text at” section
  NOTE: This will allow MS Word to create an individual table cell for each question and individual answer. However, we will correct this in the next few steps. 

A new table will be created containing the text.
NOTE: Some cleanup may be necessary at this point; delete any empty rows created by this process. 

1. Highlight the cells containing the questions and their respective answers only. 
2. Right-click the highlighted area and select Merge Cells. 
3. The questions and their subsequent answers will now be contained in one cell. 
4. Repeat these steps until all sections are contained in their respective cells. 
5. Highlight the entire column containing the questions and answers. 
6. From the menu, choose Table > Insert > Columns to the Left. 
7. Save the Word document as your original order (i.e., “original_file.doc”, etc.) 

In this new column, insert a randomly generated list, starting from the number 1 to however many questions we have to randomize.