ACC: Sending the Current Record to Word with OLE Automation

• Microsoft Access versions 2.0, 7.0

SUMMARY

Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

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:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q131583
   TITLE     : ACC: Sending the Current Record to Word 97 with
               Automation

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. (i.e. currency is sent to MS Word as a general number) It is necessary in these cases to format the data manually. This example will format a field called [Price] to output as currency:

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