About Requirement Capture from MS Word

Requirement Capture is an optional application that is installed on MS Word 2007 or 2010. It provides an efficient way to extract and import requirements from any requirement specification document authored in MS Word. Using this application, you can also check in the external specification as a source document for additional requirement captures or related projects.

Requirement capture is not limited to just text, but can also include images, tables, and the original Word document. The original document is checked in along with the imported requirements. In fact, Requirements Central tracks the attributes of every object identified for capture whether it is imported or not. The Word document that is checked-in to Requirements Central appears as attachment to the newly created requirement specification.

For an example of using MS Word to capture a specification along with Requirements, Chapters, and Comments, see Capturing a Customer Specification in MS Word.

Related Topics
About Requirements Management

Requirement Capture Toolbar

The Requirement Capture toolbar appears automatically when launching MS Word on a workstation that has Requirement Capture installed on it. The Requirement Capture toolbar varies depending on your version of MS Word.

MS Word 2007/2010 Requirement Capture Toolbar

The following toolbar appears automatically in MS Word 2007/2010:



The following table describes the MS Word Requirement Capture toolbar options.

Control

Name

Description


Requirement

Click to capture highlighted Requirement.


Chapter

Click to capture highlighted area as a Chapter.


Comment

Click to capture highlighted Comment.


Import

Click to import captures.


Find

Click to list and find captures.


Structure Capture

Click to automatically highlight document structure as Chapters.


Keyword Capture

Click to capture Requirements, Chapters, and Comments in the Word document by using keywords in an automatic or semi-automatic way.


Settings

Click to open settings page. Settings page identifies the web server location, username, password, vault, and highlight colors for Chapter, Comment, and Requirement.


Toggle Icons

Click to toggle icons for marked up and imported selections.


Toggle Bookmarks

Click to toggle bookmarks for marked up and imported selections.


Toggle Colors

Click to toggle background colors for marked up and imported selections.

Working Off-Line

When you work with the Requirement Capture tool, you identify the objects that will ultimately be imported as requirements. You can review the entire document in one session and select all captures before importing them. Or you can save and close the document and then return to it over multiple sessions until you are ready to import the captures. This process is referred to as working off-line. It gives you the time up-front to identify and structure the requirements before importing them.

You can also import captures as they are identified in the specification. Requirements Central distinguishes new from imported captures. The Find icon on the Requirement Capture toolbar produces a listing that distinguishes new from imported captures. At some point when you have completed or nearly completed all of the capture imports, you can choose to check in the document. That document is saved as an attachment to the requirement specification you created. The document is saved as data that retains all of the capture markers. You can use the check-out feature to reopen this file in MS Word with all of the capture information restored.