How do I publish complex data structures in book format in word

[Rick]

So far it looks to me that the reporting functions in access are fairly
rudamentary. I am working on setting up a complex report writing system. I am
looking for a way to use the functions of access for the storage and
manipulation of data sets and then link the resultant data sets to a word
document for creating the book type output. The primary objective is to have
any field that is updated in access to be reflected wherever it is linked in
the final word document. I haven't found a way to link in a way that is
updated automatically.

Thanks

Rick

 

[George King]

"Mail Merge" in Word is a live link that is updated each time you open the
Word document. But I seriously doubt that you could get 'complex' reporting
from Access in Word. You might look into Crystal Reports, or one of the
other third party report writers.

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Rick,

This sort of thing is possible, but the best way to go depends on just
what you need to achieve. The basic approaches are

1)Use the Access report generator and export the result to RTF format
(using Stephen Lebans's utility if the built-in export routine is not
satisfactory). This is suitable if (a) you can lay out the book (or at
least the body of it) as an Access report and (b) you don't need a
well-structured Word document (i.e. with all formatting done with
styles), just one that looks right.

http://www.lebans.com/ReportUtilities.htm

2) Use Word mailmerge (probably merging to a catalogue or directory).
This lets you achieve a well-structured document. The main limitation is
that the mailmerge engine can only handle data from a single query, and
it can get difficult or impossible to lay out hierarchical data (which
the Access report generator easily does with sub-reports and
sub-sub-reports).

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/wordmerge/index.html

Q209976 ACC2000: Using Automation to Run Word Mail Merge from Access
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=209976

Q209882 ACC2000: Using Automation to Create a Word 2000 Merge Document
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=209882

http://word.mvps.org/faqs/MailMerge/index.htm


3) Write VBA code that takes a Word template, creates a new document,
queries the database and inserts the data. This gives you total
flexibility. See e.g.

http://word.mvps.org/faqs/interdev/GetDataFromDB.htm

ACC: Sending the Current Record to Word with Automation
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=131583 (Word 97)
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=209976 (Word 2000)


http://support.microsoft.com/?id=253235