Options for working with a memo field

[Travis]

I've got a document called "investment_descriptions.doc"

This one document contains commentary and analysis on all of the
investments that I give recommendations on to my clients.

At the moment, when I'm writing a financial plan I decide which
investments to recommend to a client and I manually copy and paste the
relevant paragraphs from investment_descriptions.doc into the financial
plan template.

I'm trying to automate this via my access app.

As I can see it, my options are:

Place bookmarks in investment_descriptions.doc and retain all of my
descriptions in that one document. (This would be very convenient)
The app would select and copy just the relevant paragraphs over to the
new template. When browsing investments in my app, I would have a memo
field which is linked to the document and if I want to edit this the
app would launch Word and take me to the bookmark.

or...

Move the applicable paragraphs into Access as memo fields stored in the
table tblInvestments and write them directly from Access to my target
document.

The first one *seems* like a more convenient method to me, and the same
technique could be used for various other standard paragraphs that I'd
need my document to call on, like the disclaimers etc.

Does anyone see a significant problem with this or have any better
ideas?

Travis

 

[Allen Browne]

Hi Travis. You're not taking a break for Christmas?

I agree that Option 1 (Link the paragraphs) would be ideal if the standard
paragraphs can always be used as-is.

Option 2 (Embed the paragrahs) would be appropriate where you needed to
personalize the document, i.e. alter the text of specific documents, so it
is no longer merely the combination of the standard paragraphs, or if you
want to be able to modify your standard paragraphs over time, and still have
the old documents containing the paragrahs as they were at the time the
documents were created.

To implement option 1, you would create a table to hold the record for the
document header, and a related table to hold the paragraphs. The fields of
this DocumentDetail table would be:
DocumentDetailID AutoNumber (primary key)
DocumentID which document
ParagraphID which paragraph
SortOrder what order to assemble these paragraphs to
print this document.
The report would then have a Group Header for the DocumentID, with the
paragraphs in the detail section.

To implement option 2, you could use a similar structure, but with a Memo
field in place of the ParagraphID. Your interface would provide a list of
the standard paragraphs, with a command button to add the selected paragraph
to the document. The command button would append a record, and you can then
edit or re-order the individual paragraphs. (Actually, you could still
include a ParagraphID foreign key to indicate which standard pargraph was
originally the basis of the text that now appears in the document.)

 

[Travis]

Hi Travis. You're not taking a break for Christmas?

Ahhh Christmas, that one special time of the year when just for a few
days the phone stops ringing and you can get some real work done....

I agree that Option 1 (Link the paragraphs) would be ideal if the standard
paragraphs can always be used as-is.

Most of them can be, occasionally I need to add some client-specific
embellishments, but the standard paragraphs are just that.

Option 2 (Embed the paragrahs) would be appropriate where you needed to
personalize the document, i.e. alter the text of specific documents, so it
is no longer merely the combination of the standard paragraphs, or if you
want to be able to modify your standard paragraphs over time, and still have
the old documents containing the paragrahs as they were at the time the
documents were created.

Financial plans are a combination of standard (boilerplate) paragraphs,
modified recycled paragraphs and completely new paragraphs written from
scratch. All plans involve all three of these however the greater the
complexity of the plan the less it lends itself to automation.

For instance I could invoke a standard blurb on superannuation, then
spend the next few paragraphs discussing the client's own
superannuation and what they should do with it. Only the blurb could
be a pre-written paragraph.

To implement option 1, you would create a table to hold the record for the
document header, and a related table to hold the paragraphs. The fields of
this DocumentDetail table would be:
DocumentDetailID AutoNumber (primary key)
DocumentID which document
ParagraphID which paragraph
SortOrder what order to assemble these paragraphs to
print this document.
The report would then have a Group Header for the DocumentID, with the
paragraphs in the detail section.

To implement option 2, you could use a similar structure, but with a Memo
field in place of the ParagraphID. Your interface would provide a list of
the standard paragraphs, with a command button to add the selected paragraph
to the document. The command button would append a record, and you can then
edit or re-order the individual paragraphs. (Actually, you could still
include a ParagraphID foreign key to indicate which standard pargraph was
originally the basis of the text that now appears in the document.)

Thanks for that Allen, very helpful as always!

Travis