Multiple Personalization Purchase, need help!

[LaTonta]

I have scoured the forums looking for every keyword I can think of on this subject, I apologize in advance if I have missed the solution somewhere. Here is what I am trying to do.

I sell perpetual awards, this means an award that has multiple plates on it for engraving the yearly winners.

When someone purchases an award, many times they have several past winners they would like to engrave.

I have successfully set up attributes to allow them to purchase extra plates for the award, but now I need to figure out how to allow them to purchase past winner engravings for a flat fee.

Moreover, since the text of every plate will be different, I will need multiple text fields based on the number of engravings they wish to purchase.

How can I best achieve this? Should I try to set it up as an attribute or perhaps a another product with a link from the original product page? How can I get around the multiple input entry?

Another side issue, for which I have read several posts. I would like to fill the fields with "sample text" that the customer can change, and saw that this can be accomplished in the modules/attributes.php file. How can I identify which attribute is the one to modify in the php file?

Thanks so much for any suggestions on this issue!

[hhstudio]

Depending on what exact information you need to know you could setup attributes or just say in the description you order we will call you for personalization so we can make sure we get it right.

For automation and just having it there attributes are the best way to do it.