Installing the MS Word Document Sensor

Our approach to integrating MS Word involves the use of a customized .dot file. In order to make use of this file, you must perform the following steps:

  1. First establish a digital signature that will be attached to the .dot file. For testing purposes, the Windows Selfcert.exe program will suffice. Selfcert.exe is found in the Office programs directory, typically "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 10\"
  2. Using Word, open the .../install/template/et.dot file. You will receive a warning about the file containing macros. Click the button that enables macros. On the menu bar, select "Tools", then select "Macro", then "Visual Basic Editor". The Visual Basic Editor screen will appear. On the left side of the screen will be a Project window; inside the window there should be an entry entitled "Project(Et)", and under that an entry that says "modules". Left click on "Modules" and select "Import File...". When the Import File window pops up, navigate to the .../install/generated/vba/ directory, and click on the ETAAPIModule.bas file. After you have done this, (still in the Visual Basic window), click "Tools" on the menu bar, and then click "Digital Signatures". The dialog will present you with a choice of digital signatures you may attach to the template. Select one. Close the Visuals Basic window, save and close et.doc. Before exiting windows, select "Tools", then "Options" from the menu bar. Select the "File Locations" tab and note the location of the Startup directory (you may have to click on the "Modify" button to discover the full path). Note the location and exit Word.
  3. In order to have the et.dot functionality automatically enabled whenever Word comes up, either move et.dot to the Startup directory discovered above, or, create a link in that directory to et.doc's installed location.
  4. Finally, to enable the communications between the Windows event detection software and Siena (which sends events to the EventTrails Database server), the "EventTrails_Proxy_Port" environment variable should be set to an unused port number. If this environment variable is not set, a default port of 3141 is used. Do not specify the same port used by Siena (by default, 5433) or your database server (for PostgreSQL, the default is 5432).