J
John Simpson
In the hope that the InfoPath development team will consider the frustrations
many InfoPath users have with getting their data into Word, I am posting our
internal SharePoint development blog on this issue.
If you don't care to read our attempts at solving the problems, here's the
punchline: there is a flaw built into the InfoPath rendering algorithms
and/or processes. Without an easy bridge for getting data and formatting
from InfoPath to Word, the program will not achieve the level of corporate
adoption Microsoft would like. That's the bottom line. I hope this is fixed
by the next release.
"For some reason, the designers of InfoPath never created an Export to Word
option. From forum reading, the only way to get data out of an InfoPath form
and into word is to export it to the Web, which is saves as a .mht file. The
..mht file is a "static html snapshot" of the form. You either open that in
Word or change the extension to .doc and double click it, opening it in Word.
That's the good news. The bad news is that for a reason I cannot explain,
our InfoPath templates open in Word via the .mht format with a width of over
16 inches! Even if I change the table width, the fields (which are converted
to textboxes) still extend way beyond the right edge. There is nothing
listed in the forums about this behavior.
So I next tried taking one of the sample templates that come with InfoPath,
previewing it, adding dummy text into the fields, saving it to .mht and
importing it into Word. The problem still exists!
So I tried creating a few controls using a blank InfoPath form and going
through the same process and the problem still remains! As soon as I add two
columns and controls... poof... you can't get it into Word without the
margins and controls stretching to unbelievable lengths. Although monkeying
with the table width can bring the table in line with the document's margins,
the left column textboxes extend all the way to the right margin and the
right column's textboxes extend many inches beyond the right margin. Yuck!
I also tried the InfoPath 2003 "InfoPath to Word" wizard, but could not
register the dlls in Vista from the command prompt and the wizard itself
bombs without registering WordPrint.dll and two other files.
I tried opening the .mht file in Internet Explorer, copying and pasting it
to Word, but that reproduced the problem. Scratch that.
I tried printing it to pdf. It brings over the form and the data, but shows
all textboxes that are incomplete fields with borders and all table
coloration diappears. Not good enough.
I tried the Microsoft InfoPath forums. Lot of people have the same problem,
but there's no solution that's unique that I haven't tried.
So in Design View, I noticed that there is a "Sample Data" option under the
View menu. I tried that and it shows the form with sample data in Design
View (not Preview View). I then tried copying and pasting from within the
form view into Word and guess what... it formatted correctly!!! It also
copied over the dropdowns and combo boxes and they work too. Without sample
data, I can copy and paste the tables and they format correctly, but since
they contain no data, that's not useful.
So the problem lies in how InfoPath forms are rendered when previewed and
exported from preview mode."
many InfoPath users have with getting their data into Word, I am posting our
internal SharePoint development blog on this issue.
If you don't care to read our attempts at solving the problems, here's the
punchline: there is a flaw built into the InfoPath rendering algorithms
and/or processes. Without an easy bridge for getting data and formatting
from InfoPath to Word, the program will not achieve the level of corporate
adoption Microsoft would like. That's the bottom line. I hope this is fixed
by the next release.
"For some reason, the designers of InfoPath never created an Export to Word
option. From forum reading, the only way to get data out of an InfoPath form
and into word is to export it to the Web, which is saves as a .mht file. The
..mht file is a "static html snapshot" of the form. You either open that in
Word or change the extension to .doc and double click it, opening it in Word.
That's the good news. The bad news is that for a reason I cannot explain,
our InfoPath templates open in Word via the .mht format with a width of over
16 inches! Even if I change the table width, the fields (which are converted
to textboxes) still extend way beyond the right edge. There is nothing
listed in the forums about this behavior.
So I next tried taking one of the sample templates that come with InfoPath,
previewing it, adding dummy text into the fields, saving it to .mht and
importing it into Word. The problem still exists!
So I tried creating a few controls using a blank InfoPath form and going
through the same process and the problem still remains! As soon as I add two
columns and controls... poof... you can't get it into Word without the
margins and controls stretching to unbelievable lengths. Although monkeying
with the table width can bring the table in line with the document's margins,
the left column textboxes extend all the way to the right margin and the
right column's textboxes extend many inches beyond the right margin. Yuck!
I also tried the InfoPath 2003 "InfoPath to Word" wizard, but could not
register the dlls in Vista from the command prompt and the wizard itself
bombs without registering WordPrint.dll and two other files.
I tried opening the .mht file in Internet Explorer, copying and pasting it
to Word, but that reproduced the problem. Scratch that.
I tried printing it to pdf. It brings over the form and the data, but shows
all textboxes that are incomplete fields with borders and all table
coloration diappears. Not good enough.
I tried the Microsoft InfoPath forums. Lot of people have the same problem,
but there's no solution that's unique that I haven't tried.
So in Design View, I noticed that there is a "Sample Data" option under the
View menu. I tried that and it shows the form with sample data in Design
View (not Preview View). I then tried copying and pasting from within the
form view into Word and guess what... it formatted correctly!!! It also
copied over the dropdowns and combo boxes and they work too. Without sample
data, I can copy and paste the tables and they format correctly, but since
they contain no data, that's not useful.
So the problem lies in how InfoPath forms are rendered when previewed and
exported from preview mode."