Word as Report Writer (Merge,Template,Other)

[MajP]

I have to create a report that is editable. The report is rather simple with a few text fields and a few memo fields. There are three layers of Grouping. The problem is that the output is about 80% right, but the user will have to delete a few items, add some information, and clean it up to be more readable. If I export it as an RTF, the user ends up spending a lot of time removing hard returns, tabs, etc.
So my first question is about strategy. Do I build templates with bookmarks and call them? Do I use mail merge? I got some good code on that from this site. Do I skip the bookmarks and just work with recordsets and Word objects and ranges?
My bigger question is about making this a "continous" report. My detail section has a few text and memo fields. All the examples I have seen are about creating, multiple "single view" reports. If I use bookmarks, how do I repeat records in a detail section? Hope that makes sense.
I am proficient in automation, DAO/ADO, and VBA, and have extensive knowledge of the Access objects, but only mediocre knowledge of Word objects. Writing the code will not be the challenge, but picking a logical approach is. I could do this by brute force, but I would like to avoid creating a "Science Project", if there is an easier path to go down.
Thanks for any suggestions, or links to good examples.

 

[BoxHead]

MajP,

I think you could use Word's Insert Page Break and Insert File to create a continuous report. I tried it manually and deleted the file I had inserted without affecting the report.

It seems that by inserting the file, changes to one do not affect the other and that would be inportant to avoid anyone messing with the bookmarks.

I once built a form for reports to be edited where I used a sparate tblReport to hold the data. The report opened alongside the form and there was a button to 'apply changes'. This gave me a record of what data had been changed but didn't allow format changes.

HTH

John



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