Data Integration between applications

[Guest]

Hi,
I am responsible for maintaining my company's literature and price lists
for the different product lines we offer. This was not that difficult at first
but a few years later our product line (baked goods, for arguement's sake)
has grown and the pricelists I inherited (one in Word, 2 in Excel, etc.)
are becoming more difficult to update and much more time consuming.

I took some initiative and created an Access database with our products
and accessories listed thinking I could then just create new pricelists that
would update and add items to the lists when we added them to our line-up
or remove them when we deleted items.

However, I am hard-pressed to discover a relatively simple method of
accomplishing this. I'm using Office 2000 and I would think that there is
a way to designate one area on a pricelist for "Cookies" and have all the
cookies listed, designate another area for "Cakes" and have that section
populate, etc. Of course, these areas need to expand and contract with the
addition and deletion of items in the database.

I've already created queries in the database to filter out the different
catagories I nedd to display but I just can't seem to find the solution
regarding getting the data out to the pricelists (either Excel or Word)

Is there a solution I'm overlooking? I know Office 2003 supports XML. Is
that what is required?

Any input would be greatly appriciated.

Regards,

Pat

 

[Larry Daugherty]

Hi Patty,

Before you look beyond Access, have you tried using Access's Reports?
There are some pretty powerful sorting and grouping features that
would do what you want. I would simply use Access Reports for the
price lists unless you are required by dictate to use some other
platform as well.

HTH