Reco Access+Word Automation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Outpost
  • Start date Start date
O

Outpost

I am hoping to solict some opinons on a project I am working on. I
need to develop 4 different templates in Word. I was considering
having the user start by performing data entry in Access. Once these
data entries are made they will have a button that will open the
required template and through a merge have the fields populate on the
Template. The logic for using Access is this will also update a table
to track various programs. Has anyone had similiar experience with
this configuration? I am using Office 2003. TIA.
 
In principle it is simple enough. You can put data into a Word document
using mail merge, or by setting document properties and using docproperty
fields (may be simpler if your Word document relates to a single record
rather than an entire recordset). Make sure all the VBA code is in one
place -- either do it all in Access or do it all in Word. It makes little
difference to the code: Word VBA can fire up a reference to Access as easily
as Access VBA can fire up a reference to Word; but having code in both
places (eg in Access AND in the Word templates) can be tedious to debug, to
say the least.

Before you go very far, check whether the performance is acceptable. I've
seen applications that did exactly what you describe, that were not
acceptable for speed reasons. Outputting Access data via Word is *many*
times slower than using an Access report. But if you don't have many to do,
or you need the extra elegance of Word's formatting, it's a reasonable
approach.
 
Jez;

Thanks for the quick response and opinon. I considered using one app
to drive the task. The problem is there will be several publications
with a myriad of various formats in Word. I am planning to base the
merge on a query that will populate the Word doc with pub date,
title, etc. The database will also have a report to push to the writer
when the pub is closing on revision date.
 
Back
Top