CAUG Meeting - "Mail Merge in Access - Beyond the Basics"

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Kevin Anderson, Anderson Information Technology, Inc.

The basic mail-merge technique = Word mail-merge wizard

Shortcomings:

· limited to table/query sources, so may require inefficient joins

· limited to single source

· automation security issues

· VBA automation in Word = maintenance headache

· loss of control (e.g. wizard config problems)

· Word versioning issues

· can't do complicated docs

My subsystem = uses bookmark replacement (after Litwin's SmartAccess June 1997 article - wrdaut97.wdb)

Advantages:

· support functions of unlimited power - not just query field values

· support sophisticated layout features - bullets, checkboxes, tables

· can embed documents

· easily callable for single/multiple record instances

· can minimize user interaction

· ability to use outside of Word

· table driven = easier modification

Links:

MS basic explanation of Word automation from Access: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q124862/

Free, alternative solution to Word templates in Access: http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/wordmerge/

How to use XML to bypass the Word object: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa662941.aspx

Files from Kevin's presentation: CAUG_SEPT2008.zip