Access/Word 2003 Report OR Word mailmerge

[steward]

I want to print out letters/forms with data from individual records in a
database. Some of the letters have a lot of text among the merged fields.
Also some have calculated data from formulas. Would it be better to spend
the time laying out and formatting reports, or doing it with Word docs? I had
an old project that someone created for me that was similar, and it used all
reports. My biggest issue is the formatting/layout of all the text in the
reports.

 

[pietlinden]

I want to print out letters/forms with data from individual records in a
database. Some of the letters have a lot of text among the merged fields.
Also some have calculated data from formulas.  Would it be better to spend
the time laying out and formatting reports, or doing it with Word docs? Ihad
an old project that someone created for me that was similar, and it used all
reports.  My biggest issue is the formatting/layout of all the text in the
reports.

no brainer. Use mail merge. MUCH more flexible.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

I would go with the word.

For a few of the calculated fields, then I would create a query in
ms-access, and use that as the merge source.

If this is a letter, and you only needed some data fields from ms-access,
then the word approach wins out by a wide margin.

I have a nice working sample that does a merge of the current record to
word.

The sample I have can be found here:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html

What is nice/interesting about my sample is that is specially designed to
enable ANY form with ONE LINE of code....

Thus, each time you build a new form, you can word merge enable it with
great ease.

Make sure you read the instructions from above, and you should eventually
get to the follwoing page
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/wordmerge/page2.html


Note that the merge can also use a query, and thus you don't have to merge
just "one" record..

After the merge occurs, you get a plain document WITHOUT any merge fields,
and this allows the end user to save, edit, or even email the document
(since the merge fields are gone after the merge occurs).

Give the above a try.

 

[accesskastle]

Is there by any chance you can incorporate into your example a merge
including linked photos? This is usually where I experience hang-ups.

accesskastle