OLE Linking to Word

[JasonC]

Using Access 97, I have a table containing names of and hyperlinks to Word
documents. The documents are in various server directories.

I would like to set up a field of type OLE Object which contains the text of
each Word doc. If the Word doc changes content, I can go into Edit, OLE/DDE
Links to update the link. Is there a way to update all the links of the
table in one go (say when the database is opened)? There are several hundred
Word docs.

Is it also possible to update the names and hyperlinks with the current data
from the directories? So if a doc name is changed, or if a new one is added,
the database reflects the change. Thank you for any help.

 

[John Nurick]

Using Access 97, I have a table containing names of and hyperlinks to Word
documents. The documents are in various server directories.

I would like to set up a field of type OLE Object which contains the text
of
each Word doc. If the Word doc changes content, I can go into Edit,
OLE/DDE
Links to update the link. Is there a way to update all the links of the
table in one go (say when the database is opened)? There are several
hundred
Word docs.

There's no easy way of doing it, and I wouldn't recommend it anyway because
(1) it means you'd have two versions of each document, one in the Word .doc
file on the network and the other in the OLE field, with no reliable way of
keeping them synchronised, and (2) storing documents in OLE fields involves
a great deal of overhead and tends to "bloat" the mdb file. In general it's
much better just to store the names and locations of the documents in your
table, and use Application.FollowHyperlink or automation to launch them when
they need to be edited: there's a sample DocMgr application at
http://www.datastrat.com/DataStrat2.html.

Is it also possible to update the names and hyperlinks with the current
data
from the directories? So if a doc name is changed, or if a new one is
added,
the database reflects the change.

I think this would require setting things up so that the users' copies of
Word automatically update the database every time they save a file. But that
wouldn't stop them renaming, copying or moving files in Windows Explorer.

If your network is running on Windows 2003 Server or SBS 2003, consider
using Windows SharePoint Services. This lets you set up document libraries
where the documents are stored in a SQL Server or MSDE database (much more
efficiently than in an mdb file) and automatically provides check out/check
in, version control, and other useful features.