how to create mailing using user-editted word.doc

[Nifrabar]

Hi!
I am asked to develop an extension for a churchmember-application.
The idea is to have all new members send an 'welcome' letter. The enduser must be able to create a word.doc him/herself.
I am thinking of having 'special'words in that doc like x@Name@x, x@Adres@x etc.
Than I want VFP to go through the doc and replace x@Name@x, x@Adres@x with name and address from a VFP table. Is this a good idea or would it be possible to create a mailmerge from vfp towards word using the word-mailmerge options. In that case: howe can I have my end-users put kind of fieldcodes in the worddoc? And how to code that from within VFP?

-Bart

 

[Mike Lewis]

Bart,

Using Word's mailmerge features are more satisfactory than trying to do it yourself with place-holders. The users should create the mailmerge master document in Word in the usual way (assuming they know how to do that).

You then need to create a data source, and execute the mailmerge. The VBA Help in Word should give you a start, but if you get stuck on the details, come back.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk

 

[Nifrabar]

Mike,
Thanks for your reply. I agree with you that 'the normal mailmerge procedure' is the best. But the end-users are most 65+ or 70+ people who are having less knowlegde of these matters.
So I am looking for a way they can create their own letters but within the text , for them, quit easy to understand 'fields'.
Any suggestions on that?
-Bart

 

[white605]

The enduser must be able to create a word.doc him/herself."

This seems like the hard part to control to me. Word will merge via starting it and running a macro to merge and print and then go away or save or whatever. Fox will automate if you prefer to code it that way.

You could allow the user to "edit the doc" by adding text to a memo field, merging, formatting, and printing it with word.
wjwjr

 

[Mike Lewis]

Hi White,

This seems like the hard part to control to me.

You maybe right. On the other hand, if the users are accustomed to creating mailmerge docs, it's nice to be able to automate the actual merging for them. But I accept that's not the case in Bart's scenario.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk

 

[Nifrabar]

Wjwjr,

Possibly indeed a solution. So I should create a RTF-formatted memo which goes into word.
But still there remain restrictions than for the enduser in creating the letter the way they want.
As the endusers are quite often 65+ or 70+ it's not that easy to teach them how to create a mailmerge document using vfp-fields.
Even within the application the endusers have possibilities only to run predefined reports to make life easy for them.

-Bart

 

[TamarGranor]

With a little work, it is possible to set up a template that already has the mail merge fields attached, so the user creates the mail merge document just like any other mail merge document.

Tamar

 

[Nifrabar]

Tamar,

Thanks for your suggestion.
Probably one which fits best in relation to 65 or 70+ people.
Going to give that a try!
I'm thinking of creating that template and roll it into the exe so always possible to supply a 'fresh-one' to my users.
For now I feel this threat is 'ready' now.

Thanks to all for sharing your time and being helpfull!
-Bart

 

[Mike Lewis]

Bart,

You have several times referred to "65 to 70+" people as a reason for not using mailmerge.

Are these people particularly unskilled? Or stupid? If so, you should state that as the reason for not giving them mailmerge. If not, why do assume they won't be able to handle it?

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My Visual FoxPro site: www.ml-consult.co.uk

 

[Nifrabar]

Hi Mike,
Refering to 65+ and 70+ people:
I've found that using mailmerge is not an easy thing for everybody in my surrounding. To make life easy for my users (most of them as age) I don't want to create difficulties for them. Also for that reason in my application for them there are most only 'ready for use' reports. No menu's just buttons to make app-selections. Probably you remember from a former threat that I included for them an auto-option with make all forms - screen-filled (thanks to 1001 things). All these little things are appreciated by them very much.

And.. no, they are for sure not stupid. But a bit afraid to do things they real don't all oversee that easy.

-Bart