ACC: Sending the Current Record to Word with OLE Automation

MORE INFORMATION

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"))