HOWTO: Using OLE Automation with Microsoft Word

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 3.0, 5.0

SUMMARY

This article demonstrates using OLE Automation in Visual FoxPro to send data from a table to a Microsoft Word document. The example requires that Microsoft Word 6.0 or later be installed on the same computer as Visual FoxPro. This example consists of two basic steps: creating the mail merge document in Microsoft Word and writing the program to perform the OLE automation in Visual FoxPro.

MORE INFORMATION

1. Create the mail merge document in Microsoft Word. Start with a new document in Microsoft Word. Format the Document as follows:

         Contact
         Company
         Phone
   

         Dear greeting,
   

         <This is the body of the form letter.>
   

         Sincerely,
   

         <Your Company Name>
   

   Create bookmarks for Contact, Company, Phone, and greeting. To do this, select the item in the document (for example, Contact), choose the Edit menu pad (it’s the View menu pad in Word 97), and click the Bookmark menu item. Enter the bookmark name (for example, contact), and click Add. The bookmark name should be the same as the item selected. Repeat this for all four items. Save the Microsoft Word Document as Wordole.doc in the Vfp\Samples\Data directory.

2. Create the OLE Automation program in Visual FoxPro. Create a new program in Visual FoxPro with the following code:

   NOTE: In Word 6.0 and Word 95, use the following code:

         PUBLIC oWordObj
   

         OPEN DATA SYS(2004)+"\samples\data\TestData.dbc"
         USE Customer
   

         oWordObj=CREATEOBJECT("Word.Basic")
   

         oWordObj.FileOpen (SYS(2004)+"samples\data\wordole.doc")
   

         oWordObj.EditGoto ("contact")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Contact)
         oWordObj.EditGoTo ("company")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Company)
         oWordObj.EditGoTo ("phone")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Phone)
         oWordObj.EditGoTo ("greeting")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Contact)
   

         oWordObj.FilePrint
   

   NOTE: In Word 97, use the following code:

         PUBLIC oWordObj
   

         OPEN DATA SYS(2004)+"\samples\data\TestData.dbc"
         USE Customer
   

         oWordObj=CREATEOBJECT("Word.Basic")
   

         oWordObj.FileOpen (SYS(2004)+"samples\data\wordole.doc")
   

         oWordObj.ww7_EditGoto ("contact")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Contact)
         oWordObj. ww7_EditGoTo ("company")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Company)
         oWordObj. ww7_EditGoTo ("phone")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Phone)
         oWordObj. ww7_EditGoTo ("greeting")
         oWordObj.Insert (Customer.Contact)
   

         oWordObj.FilePrint
   

   Save and run the program. When the program is run, the form letter should print using data from record one in the Customer table.

   By removing the Open Data and Use Customer commands, you could call this program from a form that was based on the customer table. If the program is called from the click event of a command button, the form letter would be printed using data from the current record in the customer table.

Keywords          : FxinteropOle vfoxwin kbcode kbinterop
Technology        : kbole
Version           : 3.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto