mass printing of word document with dynamic fields

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Zeng - 06 Jan 2004 18:38 GMT

Hello,

I'm not that familiar with mail merge, please help.

I have a web application which accept users' custom forms/letters in Word
format with special tag to match with database field (SSN or name of of a
person). For each business file that my application manages, I would need
to allow users to print out the form with the values from database filled
in, for example:

FORM CONTENT:
Hello <Person_Name>,
I would like to inform you that your ssn: <SSN> has been recorded to our
file. Please contact us if you have any question.

PRINT OUT for file A (when they edit the file in my application)
Hello Peter Smitth,
I would like to inform you that your ssn: 111-22-3333 has been recorded to
our file. Please contact us if you have any question.

PRINT OUT for file B (when they edit the file in my application)
Hello John Black,
I would like to inform you that your ssn: 222-99-4444 has been recorded to
our file. Please contact us if you have any question.

I normally would have to this with Acrobat file, how do I automate this
"filling in" with Word document?

Thanks!

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Peter Jamieson - 07 Jan 2004 07:57 GMT

Let's just make sure we understand what you want.

My main question is: is all the information necessary to produce and print
these forms available on the server? Or is the end user required to enter
some information?

If the answer is that all the info. is available on the server, then you
could consider
a. automating Word on the server to produce a document that is then
provided to the client. However, Microsoft Office is not designed for
server-side automation and Microsoft does not recommend it.
b. generating an HTML or RTF file on the server that looks correct when
opened in Word on the client.

You can probably use (b) if the layout is reasonably simple and the size of
the various bits of info. you have does not vary too much (e.g. does not
push Word over a page boundary). I would probably
(c) create the necessary layout in Word, using "placeholder" text where you
want to put your variable text
(d) save as HTML/RTF
(e) use server-side code to get that HTML/RTF, replace the placeholder text
by the variable data you have, and deliver it to the client.

--
Peter Jamieson - Word MVP
Word MVP web site http://www.mvps.org/word

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>
> Thanks!

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