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Mail Merge 1

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SonJ

SonJ

Programmer
Oct 24, 2002
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Hi,

I have a requirement for an application that I am building to enable users to print address labels. I think the preferred solution would be to use the mail merge function in word (as a formatted template for the label size is readily available), once I produce the spreadsheet of the data in excel.

Does anyone know if it is possible to do this from a web application? If so, does anyone have any pointers? If not, is there a simple alternative.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 
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Please clarify the role of Excel in this project.

Are you saying that an Excel file is the data source?
 
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Hi Sheco,

Basically I want to do a mail merge of labels from my web application. I am not sure if it will be easier to do this in word or excel, though looking at various posts, word seems to be the way forward. Any help would be much appreciated.
 
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Ah, so the addresses themselves are stored in a database and you are just considering Word and Execl as potential output formats? Is that right?
 
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here...something like this:

Code: 
<html>
<head>
<title>Labels</title>
<style>

<!--
div.Section1
	{page:Section1;}
p.MsoNormal
	{mso-style-parent:"";
	margin-bottom:.0001pt;
	font-size:12.0pt;
	font-family:"Times New Roman";
	margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in}

p.DotNetGnat { page-break-before: always }
-->

</style>
<meta name="blah" content="Labels">
</head>

<%
'put whatever response.contenttype you want...word or excel

'declare any variables

Set rsObj = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
Set MdConnection = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
MdConnection.ConnectionString = "your connection string"
MdConnection.Open

sql = "your query"

rsObj.Open sql, MdConnection

If rsObj.EOF AND rsObj.BOF Then 

Response.Write "Sorry. No records returned for your search criteria"

Else


%>
<body>

<div class="Section1">

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" height="181">

<%
  count = 0
  myMod = 0
 


   do while not rsObj.EOF
    myMod = count mod 3


    if (count) MOD 30 = 0 then %>
</table>
  <p class='DotNetGnat' align='center'> </p> 

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" height="181">

<%End if

    'Do we need to start a new row?
    
     
     if (myMod = 0) then Response.Write "<tr style=""height: 1.0in"">"

    
    
     'Write table data cell here

    Response.Write "<td width=""257"" style=""width: 192.75pt; height: 1.0in; padding-left: .75pt; padding-right:.75pt;    padding-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in"">"
 
Response.Write "<p class=""MsoNormal"" align=""center"" style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:5.3pt;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:5.3pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center"">"

Response.Write"<b><span style=""font-family: Arial"">" & rsObj("whatever")&"</span></b></p>"

Response.Write "<p class=""MsoNormal"" align=""center"" style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:5.3pt;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:5.3pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center"">"
Response.Write "<span style=""font-family: Arial""> " & rsObj("whatever")&"</span></p>"

Response.Write "<p class=""MsoNormal"" align=""center"" style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:5.3pt;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:5.3pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center"">&nbsp;</p>"

Response.Write "<p class=""MsoNormal"" align=""center"" style=""margin-top:0in;margin-right:5.3pt;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:5.3pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center"">&nbsp;</td>"  


'Do we need to end a the table row?
    if (myMod = 2) then Response.Write "</tr>"

    count = count + 1

    rsObj.MoveNext
  
  loop

'finish the last table row here
  select case myMod
    case 0
      'need 2 empty cells and close table row
      Response.Write "<td width=""257"" style=""width: 192.75pt; height: 1.0in; padding-left: .75pt; padding-right:.75pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in"">&nbsp;</td><td width=""257"" style=""width: 192.75pt; height: 1.0in; padding-left: .75pt; padding-right:.75pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in"">&nbsp;</td></tr>"    
    case 1
      'need 1 empty cell and close table row
      Response.Write "<td width=""257"" style=""width: 192.75pt; height: 1.0in; padding-left: .75pt; padding-right:.75pt; padding-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in"">&nbsp;</td></tr>"
    case 2
      'nothing else needed
  end select
%>
</table>

<%
 
rsObj.Close
End if
%>
</body>
</html>

hope this helps...

-DNG
 
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If at all possible do it with a plain web page like DNG suggested. Using Office Automation on a web server is problematic... it is too easy to end up with "phantom" instances of excel or winword floating around in your web server's memory chewing up the available memory.
 
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DNG,

Thanks for the suggested solution, I think this is defo the way forward as I have been working with mail merge for the last few days and not got any further in finding a solution.

I have a question though. The results vary depending on the printer that I use ... odd, I know. It works really well when I use a network printer and not so well if I use a personal printer. Is there anyway I can control the left, right, top and bottom margins to ensure consistent printing?

SonJ
 
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SonJ,

Yes you can set the printer settings...let me know if you need the help with the code...but you need to do that inside the <style> tags...

-DNG

 
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Thanks DNG. I have not done that before (and not too sure where I should start!), so if you could let me know what I need to do that would be great! Also, do you have any references for this?

Your help is much appreciated.

SonJ
 
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DGN, what are you using to format the printout? I've not had much success. IE has whacko printing margins, and I've never been able to get the margins close enough to the edge when creating a word file.
 
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travis,

do you see this code in the style tags

Code: 
<style>

<!--
div.Section1
    {page:Section1;}
p.MsoNormal
    {mso-style-parent:"";
    margin-bottom:.0001pt;
    font-size:12.0pt;
    font-family:"Times New Roman";
    margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in}

p.DotNetGnat { page-break-before: always }
-->

</style>

this is where we can change the formatting...

i am not sure if this what actual problem you are facing...so please post more details...may be you can start a new thread so that others might also assist you...

-DNG
 
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You may need to config the page set-up using IE options. You will only have to do this once for the label output page.
 
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Thanks DGN. Yeah, I think i've done as much as I can with css. I was wondering if you knew any secrets. I was reading up on it, and the problem lies with IE. SonJ is right; the user has to manually config IE margins.
 
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