ACC: Sending the Current Record to Word with OLE Automation (124862)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Access 2.0
  • Microsoft Access for Windows 95 7.0
This article was previously published under Q124862
Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

SUMMARY

This article describes how you can merge the current record in a Microsoft Access object into a document in Microsoft Word version 7.0 or earlier, and open it in print preview.

For information about how to merge the current record with a Microsoft Word 97 document, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

131583 ACC: Sending the Current Record to Word 97 with Automation

This article assumes that you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications, please refer to the "Building Applications with Microsoft Access for Windows 95" manual.

NOTE: Visual Basic for Applications (used in Microsoft Access for Windows 95 version 7.0) is called Access Basic in version 2.0. For more information about Access Basic, please refer to the "Building Applications" manual.

MORE INFORMATION

The following steps demonstrate how to create a Microsoft Word document and a Microsoft Access form, which are then used to merge the current record from Microsoft Access into Microsoft Word:
  1. Start Microsoft Word and create the following new document:
          First Last
      Address
      City, Region, PostalCode

      Dear Greeting,

      Northwind Traders would like to thank you for
      your employment during the past year. Below
      you will find your photo. If this is not your
      most current picture, please let us know.

      Photo

      Sincerely,

      Northwind Traders
  2. Create a bookmark for the word "First." To do so, select the word "First," click Bookmark on the Edit menu, type "First" (without the quotation marks) in the Bookmark Name box, and then click the Add button.
  3. Repeat step 2 for the Last, Address, City, Region, PostalCode, Greeting, and Photo fields.
  4. Save the document as Olemerge.doc in the root folder (directory) of drive C.
  5. Start Microsoft Access and open the sample database Northwind.mdb (or NWIND.MDB in version 2.0).
  6. Open the Employees form in Design view.
  7. In the General section of the form module, declare the following global variable:
    Dim Word As Object
  8. Add a command button to the form and set the button's OnClick property to the following event procedure.

    In version 7.0: 

           Sub Command40_Click()
       On Error GoTo CatchBlanks
       Dim Word As Object ' Declare in the module to view the print
                          ' preview after the Sub ends

          DoCmd.GoToControl "Photo"
          DoCmd.DoMenuItem acFormBar, acEditMenu, acCopy, , acMenuVer70
          Set Word = CreateObject("Word.Basic")
          Word.FileOpen ("C:\OLEMERGE.DOC")
          Word.EditGoto "Last"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![LastName])
          Word.EditGoto "First"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![FirstName])
          Word.EditGoto "Address"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![Address])
          Word.EditGoto "City"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![City])
          Word.EditGoto "Region"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![Region])
          Word.EditGoto "PostalCode"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![PostalCode])
          Word.EditGoto "Greeting"
          Word.INSERT CStr(Forms![Employees]![FirstName])
          Word.EditGoto "Photo"
          Word.EditPaste
          'Word.FilePrint 0
          ' To send the record directly to the printer, unremark the line
          ' above, and remark the next two lines below.
          Word.appmaximize "",1
          Word.FilePrintPreview
          Word.AppActivate "Microsoft Word"
          Exit Sub

       CatchBlanks:
           If MsgBox("Error sending one field, it may be blank. Would _
              you like to continue?", 52) = 6 Then
              Resume Next
           Else
              Exit Sub
           End If

      End Sub

    In version 2.0:

    NOTE: In the following sample code, an underscore (_) at the end of a line is used as a line-continuation character. Remove the underscore from the end of the line when re-creating this code in Access Basic. 

           Sub Button182_Click ()
          On Error GoTo CatchBlanks
          Dim Word As Object ' Declare in the module to view the print
                             ' preview after the Sub ends

          DoCmd GoToControl "Photo"
          DoCmd DoMenuItem A_FORMBAR, A_EDIT, A_COPY
          Set Word = CreateObject("Word.Basic")
          Word.FileOpen ("C:\OLEMERGE.DOC")
          Word.EditGoto "Last"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![Last Name])
          Word.EditGoto "First"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![First Name])
          Word.EditGoto "Address"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![Address])
          Word.EditGoto "City"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![City])
          Word.EditGoto "Region"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![Region])
          Word.EditGoto "PostalCode"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![Postal Code])
          Word.EditGoto "Greeting"
          Word.Insert CStr(Forms![Employees]![Last Name])
          Word.EditGoto "Photo"
          Word.EditPaste
          ' Word.FilePrint 0, 0, "0", "", "", "", 0, "1", "", 0, 0, 1, ""

          ' NOTE: When sending the current record from Microsoft Access 2.0
          ' to Microsoft Word 95, replace the above line with the
          ' following line:

          ' Word.FilePrint 0

          ' To send the record directly to the printer, unremark one of the
          ' lines above, and remark the next two lines below.

          Word.appmaximize "",1
          Word.FilePrintPreview
          Word.AppActivate "Microsoft Word"
       Exit Sub

          CatchBlanks:
             If MsgBox("Error sending one field, it may be blank. Would _
             you like to continue?", 52) = 6 Then
                Resume Next
             Else
                Exit Sub
             End If

       End Sub
  9. Save the form, and then view the form in Form view. Click the new command button.

    Note that the current record is sent to Microsoft Word, merged into the OLEMERGE document, and then opened in print preview.

    Note on output format: Many of the Access data types are output unformatted. (that is, currency is sent to MS Word as a general number) It is necessary in these cases to format the data manually. The following example will format a field called [Price] to output as currency:

    Word.Insert Cstr(Format(Forms![FormName]![Price], "Currency"))

Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:10/11/2006
Keywords:kbhowto kbProgramming KB124862
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