Hello,



I don't know if any of you have used the LaTeX Text Editor, but my current
question comes from an idea I had when reflecting on work I've done when
writing papers within LaTeX.







A few days ago I was making a mail merge for my father, where I would link
addresses from an Access DB to an MS Word document.



In this particular mailing I'm doing, I have the need to print an image
which is naturally the size of a regular 8x11 sheet of paper. If I insert
the image into the word document, Word resizes it and wraps the image inside
a document. This is unacceptable because resizing the image causes the text
on the image to become unreadable. I also don't know of a way to link the
image without wrapping it in the word document. I want the image to print
without reformatting, because it unfortunately is a big image.



The desired quality of the image is when I print the image through
"Microsoft Windows Picture and Fax viewer" (with the option of: full page
photo print).



However, when printing a mail merge, users find fun in crafting automation.
There's no way (at least that I know of, which should it exist I'd really
wish to know) to tell Word to do this:



With the hit of one print button:

- Print this Envelope and Document composed in MS Word.

- Print the images linked to this "file" with another print processor (like
Microsoft Windows picture and Fax Viewer"... which should come out to 1
image per page in this situation)





When composing a document in LaTeX, you link images with your document. The
LaTeX document doesn't embed them (but rather, your images are compiled into
the document at the end with formatting you specify). I realize there are
options for word not to inline images, but what if the image is equal to the
page size? Can I marshal multiple images to print with a different print
processor than Word but have to only hit print once?





Another great idea that spins from this follows: When people compose a Word
document, they may wish to link other documents that were composed in
different programs (like Adobe PDFs) to their current document.

For instance, suppose I have an instruction sheet on how to complete a
particular form which has been composed in Word Format and I have the actual
form in Adobe PDF format, I would want to somehow "link" them together. (so
that there is encapsulation that is forced to be sequential... unlike
enclosing files in a zip file whereby the user accesses them in any order,
forcing sequential access to a sequence of files allows a flow to exist
between multiple different files (which in this case would be of different
file types) in a set, like the pages of a book). I think this could be
achieved by spooling all documents of different file types to a virtual
printer using the different programs that read them, and then retrieving the
postscript generated by the printer which is the same format (file
independent) then "gluing" the file together. Is there a way to do this
currently?



The current way users do this is to convert the document to Word format so
that they can include it with their current document. Is there a way which
permits the user to print multiple documents which are linked to one
document (in this case a word file) but by hitting the print button once
(like when doing a mail merge)







Please consider the thoughts presented and respond to me whether this can be
accomplished with Word.



Regards,

Krystian.