RTF Mail Merge Fields
Yes, we are back to here...
The problem with trying to include RTF text via merge fields is
that merge fields only insert character data, with no formatting
information from the data source. If you copied your Access data
to a Word document, used that as the data source, and used REF
fields instead of MERGEFIELD fields to insert data, some of the
formatting gets through, but it's all rather arbitrary.
The only way I know to get the RTF text from Access to Word that
has any hope of working is to export the contents of each Access
RTF field to a .rtf file on disk, then insert t using an
INCLUDETEXT field. This is of course non-trivial, but I quote an
earlier message that has some ideas...
In other words, using MERGEFIELD fields loses the most formatting, using
REF fields with a Word format data source loses less formatting, using
INCLUDETEXTed RTF files generated on the fly /may/ lose less than that
(but I wouldn't count on it, because at that point you face all the
difficulties of merging two files, each of which may reference its own
set of "format definitions" (cf. styles), which may clash in various
ways). (and in that case, it may not matter /how/ you insert the RTF,
but I guess you have a better chance of controlling the outcome using
VB(A)+Word object model than MERGEFIELD/REF fields).
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Vic wrote:
Peter,
I think there is just an inherent problem in Word (and I've also tried
Word 7) with merging a data source that contains a table with a bulleted
list. If you can just create 2 documents and the source contains a
column that includes a bulleted list and merge that into a second word
document. I have not been able to get this to work simply using the
buttons on the menu for a mail merge.
Vic
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Vic,
OK, I think it's going to be difficult to start from where you are and
achieve a reliable result.
It seems to me that there are two main considerations:
a. do you have full control over the formatting that is in the data
source?
b. even if you do, is there a way to ensure that Word honours the
formatting that you applied?
Most of the following is guesswork as I have not even attempted to
follow all the steps you are likely to be using...
As far as (a) is concerned, if you are using the Richtext control in
VB6 to generate the RTF in the data source, then
c. From your previous messages it seems that the control is generating
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fc harset0 MS Sans
Serif;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset2 Symbol;}}
\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs17 OK - We need to change these
text boxes so that we can \b set strings of words to BOLD\b0 ,
change fonts, do underlines and we also need to do bullets:
\par
\par
\pard{\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}{\*\pn\pnlvlblt\pnf1\pnin dent0{\pntxtb\'B7}}Oranges
\par {\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}Apples
\par {\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}Pears
\par \pard
\par This all seems to work but when it gets merged into word,
all of the formatting characters show as text!
\par
\par
\par }
d. my guess is that Word 2002 will ignore the formatting specified as
{\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}
(which is "direct formatting"), because Word 2002 is supposed to
know how to honour
{\*\pn\pnlvlblt\pnf1\pnindent0{\pntxtb\'B7}}
which specifies bullet formatting for the list as a whole.
e. in other words, it is possible that if you could avoid generating
that {\*\...} stuff, Word would just take the bullets you provided and
insert them
However, if you are going via an intermediate Word file as my previous
posts suggested, it is possible that even if you were able to remove
that {\*\ } RTF code, Word might well re-introduce it if you
programmatically use Word Save-As to save your data source.
Finally, if you have control over what is in the database, the chances
are that you would be much better off avoiding this approach to a
merge - perhaps generating th necessary bullets by direct programming
of the word object model rather than going via mailmerge. If you do
not, then the only way is if something can be done about (b)
As for (b), it is probably a question of whether the paragraph(s)
containing the { REF memofield } field could be formatted using a
particular "listformat" that overrides anything in the RTF. I simply
do not know whether that can be done or not.
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Vic wrote:
Peter,
OK - Here's what I'm doing. I am using VB6 program to do a mail
merge where the both the merge source and the main document are rtf
files. For the merge source the app creates the word document with a
word table which contains the merge data from an Access database.
The problem I'm having is when the merge source contains a bulleted
list, the merged documents are formatted as 1. 2. 3. etc. instead of
a bullet (.). I have checked the merge source and the column
containing the bullet list is correctly formatted. I also tried
doing the merge in word and the results are the same as when the
merge is done in my program. So my question is how do I a merge
where the source contains bulleted lists and maintain the correct
style of the bullets.
Vic
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Vic,
For one thing, you are probably now way ahead of me!
Also - I've rather lost the plot here, but if you can spell out what
you are using in the RTF, what you are using in the mail merge main
document, what results you are trying to achieve and what you are
actually getting, I can certainly have another look.
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Vic wrote:
Peter,
What I've found is that I can enter the bullet character using ALT
7 (.) for each item instead of setting selBullet = true per the rtf
spec and it works correctly in the merge. Also the paragraph
sequencing is not affected. Any ideas ?
Vic
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Ypur best bet here is probably to avoid using automatic numbering
in the main document - although it may be possible to prevent
"interference" between the numbering in the RTF and the numbering
in the main document by specifying a named list template or some
such in the main document, that stuff is hard to tame. What you
coud try is SEQ-based numbering in the main document, e.g. where
you use
{ SEQ } fields, the \r switch to reset numbering for each
sequence, \h to hide the result when you do that, and the \c
switch to re-use the existing number, e.g.
{ SEQ level2 \r0 \h }{ SEQ level1 }.
{ SEQ level1 \c }.{ SEQ level2 }
{ SEQ level1 \c }.{ SEQ level2 }
{ SEQ level1 \c }.{ SEQ level2 }
{ SEQ level2 \r0 \h }{ SEQ level1 }.
{ SEQ level1 \c }.{ SEQ level2 }
{ SEQ level1 \c }.{ SEQ level2 }
{ SEQ level1 \c }.{ SEQ level2 }
to give you a sequence like
1.
1.1
1.2
1.3
2.
2.1
2.2
2.3
I don't know if that approach fits your requirement, but it's the
best I can do right now.
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Vic wrote:
Another thing the bullets cause is to change the paragraph
numbering that follows the bulleted list i.e.
(The following data is from the merge source)
Text Box Facility Info: OK - We need to change these text boxes
so that we can set strings of words to
BOLD, change fonts, do underlines and we also need to do bullets:
This all seems to work but when it gets merged into word, all of
the formatting is lost. No bolding, underlines,
bullets etc.
1. Apples
2. Oranges
3. Bananas
This seems to be changing the paragraph number in the rest ot the
document
(the main document starts here)
INTRODUCTION
3.1. PURPOSE
The 3.1 PURPOSE should be 1.1. After the merge it became 3.1.
Perhaps if I could get the bullet character to change to
something else may have some sort of impact on the numbering but
so far I haven't found a way to specify the bullet character.
Vic
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in
message ...
The problem with trying to include RTF text via merge fields is
that merge fields only insert character data, with no formatting
information from the data source. If you copied your Access data
to a Word document, used that as the data source, and used REF
fields instead of MERGEFIELD fields to insert data, some of the
formatting gets through, but it's all rather arbitrary.
The only way I know to get the RTF text from Access to Word that
has any hope of working is to export the contents of each Access
RTF field to a .rtf file on disk, then insert t using an
INCLUDETEXT field. This is of course non-trivial, but I quote an
earlier message that has some ideas...
----------------------
Using Mailmerge without code, you have to export the content of
each
field containing rtf text to a disk file, then use INCLUDETEXT
to insert it.
Typically you would need to export the text to a filename that is
somehow related to a unique identifier (e.g. the primary key
field(s))
in the table you are merging. So suppose you have a autonumber
primary
key called k containing 1,2,3,... and your column is called
mycolumn,
you might create a file called c:\myrtfs\mycolumn1.rtf for the
rtf for
mycolumn in record 1
Then you would use a nested INCLUDETEXT field in your mail merge
main
document, e.g.
{ INCLUDETEXT "c:\\myrtfs\\mycolumn{ MERGEFIELD k }" }
Alternatively, you might be able to use Word MailMerge events:
for each
Access record, the event handler (probably
MailMergeBeforeRecordMerge)
would need to use e.g. ADO to export the RTF, then insert it
into the
document. I do not know how feasible that is.
I can't say I recommend this, but for a small number of records you
could consider the following:
a. create an Access User-defined (VBA) function that exports
the RTF
for a specified field into a file
b. create an Access query that returns the other data you want
and
calls that function. Ideally the function would return the
pathname of
the file it created, with backslashes doubled up.
c. In Word, connect to that query using the DDE connection method
(there is another possibility)
Here's a how-to I wrote in 2001, slightly modified:
Suppose the function
is called rtfx
b. create a query that has columns k, r and rtfx
c. use the query as the datasource for your merge.
For example, the following Access function should do the necessary
Function rtfx(n As Integer, s As String) As String
dim r as String
Dim t As String * 1
' Generate the file name you want
rtfx = "c:\myrtfs\rtf" & Trim(Str(n)) & ".rtf"
' and return a doubled-backslash version ias the function result
rtfx = "c:\\myrtfs\\rtf" & Trim(Str(n)) & ".rtf"
Open r For Binary As 1 Len = 1
For i = 1 To Len(s)
t = Mid(s, i, 1)
Put #1, i, t
Next
Close 1
End Function
Then your query might have columns
k, r, and rtfx(k,r)
e.g.
Run the query in Access and Access will modify the text in
column 3 to
something like
Expr1: rtfx([k],[r])
You can then change Expr1 to a more helpful name such as "filepath"
Then create your Word mailmerge main document and set up the
query as the
data source - Word should offer k,r and filepath as the possible
mergefields.
Your INCLUDETEXT field would then need to look like
{ INCLUDETEXT "{ MERGEFIELD filepath }" }
Worth a try?
----------------------
Of course, that assumes that you are using the MailMerge
mechanism, but faced with this problem for real, I would
probably avoid MailMerge and use Access VBA code to generate
each Word document in turn (assuming you're not going for a
catalog/directory), saving each RTF field to disk as needed and
inserting it directly using the relevant Word Insert file
method. However, I cannot provide you with code for that.
Yes, it probably is something that lots of people want to do,
but there are non-trivial problems to solve when attempting
this, no matter how you encode your formatted text (e.g., you
encode it using XML, but using which vocabulary/ies?). And I
don't suppose anyone on the development side has wanted to solve
it for RTF-encoded text ever since RTF became a "legacy format",
which you could argue is over a decade ago.
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Vic wrote:
Doug,
Thanks for the reply but I'm having a problem understanding how
to implement these switches. The rtf fields are inserted in an
Access database using a VB program and contain data such as:
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fc harset0 MS
Sans Serif;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset2 Symbol;}}
\viewkind4\uc1\pard\lang1033\f0\fs17 OK - We need to change
these text boxes so that we can \b set strings of words to
BOLD\b0 , change fonts, do underlines and we also need to do
bullets:
\par
\par
\pard{\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}{\*\pn\pnlvlblt\pnf1\pnin dent0{\pntxtb\'B7}}Oranges
\par {\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}Apples
\par {\pntext\f1\'B7\tab}Pears
\par \pard
\par This all seems to work but when it gets merged into word,
all of the formatting characters show as text!
\par
\par
\par }
It appears to me from the use of these switches I can use
/*charformat to bold, underline and italics. So where are these
switches implemented? I tried as a test to press ctl F9 and
inserted Graham's bold example { REF chapter2_title \*
Charformat } would display "Whales of the Pacific" but it only
displayed this as plain text without formatting.
I need to be able to have this done programmatically so I would
assume I'd need some sort of word macro. The VB program
invokes the mail merge and turns the document into a PDF which
then gets merged with other PDF documents to produce a final
document as a PDF. So I suppose I'd have to invoke the word
macro to massage the word document after the mail merge is
completed. Would that be correct?
I don't see that bullets, indenting and font changes are
supported with switches. Are there any examples of using
templates with docvariable fields. There are about 20 merge
fields that are inserted in this document.
Would you provide a bit of guidance on where to go from here?
Are there some examples somewhere for doing this. It would
seem to me to be a quite common occurance but I'm finding
limited information on using switches and merge fields that
contain rtf data.
Vic
"Doug Robbins - Word MVP on news.microsoft.com"
wrote in message
...
For any more than the formatting that can be applied by use of
Word field formatting switches, I think that you would have
to use a "roll-your-own" equivalent to mailmerge where in
place of a mail merge main document containing mergefields,
you would use a template containing docvariable fields and
then you would run a macro that would create a new document
from that template for each record in data source, setting the
values of variables in the document to the value of
corresponding field for that record in the data source and
making use of the formatting information in the data source to
apply the required formatting.
For information on Word field formatting switches, see
"Formatting Word fields with switches" on fellow MVP Graham
Mayor's website at:
http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm
--
Hope this helps.
Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail
yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.
Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via
msnews.microsoft.com
"Vic" wrote in message
...
Hello,
I am trying to setup a mail merge and use rtf text fields
from a database. These rtf fields contain the formatting
instructions for bolding, bullets, font settings etc.
However, the problem I am having is word does not recognize
these formatting characters and prints everything as plain
text. My main document is an rtf file.
How can I get word to interpretate these instructions? I am
using Word 2002.
Thank you,
Vic
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