Create a database using MS Word

[mll]

Hi

Can someone tell me where I can find some information on
creating quite a sophisticated database to generate form
letters and labels within word? I think access would be
more suitable for what I'm trying to achieve, but I don't
have it.

Thanks in advance

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I don't think there's a particularly good source of info. on this subject in
English, but
a. there are a number of ways you could try constructing "quite a
sophisticated database" without having a software package designed to
develop database applications (such as Access). By which I mean you can set
up a number of tables and use those tables either individually or in
combination as mail merge data sources. For example, you do not actually
need Access to create and populate an Access (Jet) database - you can use VB
or VBA and ADO to do it programmatically. Or you could maintain a database
consisting of a number of tables in plain text format, maintained using e.g.
Notepad.
b. however I think that would really be a very time-consuming and difficult
task - using a software product designed for the job, such as Access, must
surely be a much more simple way to go
c. further, once you have such a product, you may find that it makes sense
to use its reporting facilities to generate at least some of your output
rather than Word, particularly for things which Word mailmerge is not very
good at, such as producing "parent/child (one-many) type output, e.g. one
invoice with a variable number of lines per customer.
d. you probably also need to take a good look at what Word's mailmerge is
capable and not capable of doing "out of the box" before committing to a
particular approach. Beyond a certain level of complexity, you really need
to consider "rolling your own" merge applications using (say) VBA to get,
insert and format the data.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Outlook is perhaps the simplest tool for creating such databases. I would be
lost without it. Word is not a database application and to try and make it
work like that would require some complex vba programming - however, you can
set up a table in Word with a title row at the top and as many columns as
you want fields and Word will happily use that as a data source.
Jump into http://www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com/convert_labels_into_mail_merge.htm
where near the end you'll see the plan.
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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