Accessing Word from Microsoft Access

I am trying to copy a routine written by Alan Simpson to print a contacts
address directly to a word document. I have created the word document with
bookmarks for FullName, Street, Address, and Salutation. When I run the
routine, the compiler balks on the 'with' items, saying 'invalid use of
property'. I know the routine finds the word document in question, because
if I rem out all the with items, the document is displayed. Routine is given
below. Any help appreciated.


Private Sub cmdMergetoWord_Click()
Dim strFullName, strSalutation, strStreet, strAddress As String
Dim Wrd As New Word.Application
Set Wrd = CreateObject("Word.Application")

Dim strMergeDoc As String
strMergeDoc = "C:\Users\rip\Documents\Data\word\OneContact.D ot"
'Open the word document, make it visible
Wrd.Documents.Add strMergeDoc
Wrd.Visible = True
With Wrd.ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
.item("FullName") = strFullName
.item("Street") = strStreet
.item("Address") = strAddress
.item("Salutation") = strSalutation
End With
Wrd.ActiveDocument.PrintPreview

End Sub

Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

I haven't seen anywhere in your code where you set a value on your
variables. What's the value of strFullName, etc.?
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
http://www.accessmvp.com

"Rip West" wrote in message
...

I am trying to copy a routine written by Alan Simpson to print a contacts
address directly to a word document. I have created the word document with
bookmarks for FullName, Street, Address, and Salutation. When I run the
routine, the compiler balks on the 'with' items, saying 'invalid use of
property'. I know the routine finds the word document in question, because
if I rem out all the with items, the document is displayed. Routine is
given below. Any help appreciated.


Private Sub cmdMergetoWord_Click()
Dim strFullName, strSalutation, strStreet, strAddress As String
Dim Wrd As New Word.Application
Set Wrd = CreateObject("Word.Application")

Dim strMergeDoc As String
strMergeDoc = "C:\Users\rip\Documents\Data\word\OneContact.D ot"
'Open the word document, make it visible
Wrd.Documents.Add strMergeDoc
Wrd.Visible = True
With Wrd.ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
.item("FullName") = strFullName
.item("Street") = strStreet
.item("Address") = strAddress
.item("Salutation") = strSalutation
End With
Wrd.ActiveDocument.PrintPreview

End Sub

Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

In your code example you don't show where you setup strtreet etc. Just
looking at your code, we have quite few things to fix.

Without getting a lot more details here, you have to fix a good of things.
Remember, defining something as strAddress, or strZoo don't make a
differnce. You are NOT setting strZoo, or strAddress ANYWHERE in your code.

I going to suggest that you also drop the use of bookmarks. They are a royal
pain, force you to hard code both your code and the document. (each time you
change something, you have to change your code).

I would suggest you use the built-in word merge as it is far more easy. (I
also suspect you are somewhat new to coding, and thus bookmarks are going to
be quite a challenge for you.

To solve all of your woes, I going to suggest you use my super easy word
merge.

The sample I have can be found he
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKal.../msaccess.html

What is nice/interesting about my sample is that is specially designed to
enable ANY form with ONE LINE of code to merge the ONE record you are
looking at.

Thus, each time you build a new form, you can word merge enable it with
great ease. And, you can build new document without bookmarks.

Make sure you read the instructions from above, and you should eventually
get to the following page
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKal...rge/page2.html

Note that the merge can also use a query, and thus you don't have to merge
just "one" record..

After the merge occurs, you get a plain document WITHOUT any merge fields,
and this allows the end user to save, edit, or even email the document
(since the merge fields are gone after the merge occurs).

If you following the instructions step by step, you get a working merge....

So, give my sample a try, it is quite automated, and you DO NOT have to
write more then ONE line of code to do your merge, and you don't have to
insert bookmarks into your word docuemnt.


--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

Albert,

Thank you for your reply. Actually, I was familiar with your routine, and
was going to try that as well. But before doing that, I wanted to understand
why the compiler balks on my routine. As you pointed out, the variables were
never set up. I have fixed that, but that is not the reason that I get the
error message. The error message points to the with statements, but it never
compliles at all. I would really like to know what else is wrong with the
routine. I do intend to try your routine. It sounds exactly what I am
looking for, but, at this point, I am trying to learn something. Any help
would be greatly appreciated.

Another mistake I just made was in responding to you personally, rather than
to the forum. I apologize for that.

Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

--
Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

Arvin, hank you for your reply. I have corrected the variables problem.
Silly mistake. But that is not the reason that I get the error message. The
error message points to the with statements, but it never compliles at all.
I would really like to know what else is wrong with the
routine. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

"Rip West" wrote in message
...
Albert,

I wanted to understand why the compiler balks on my routine.

ok, lets take a look at the code:

When I pasted the code into a form, and when I try to comple, the first
thing that went wrong was:

Dim Wrd As New Word.Application


So, to "check" the code, you can (and should) go debug-compile.

So, to fix the above, we have set a reference to word. While looking at the
code, you go

tools-references

Then scroll down to

Microsoft word 11.0 object libary

Note that 11 is for office 2003, 10 for office 2002. You have to choose
whatever version you are using.

if you move your application and code to run on a different machine, then
you will again have to change this reference. This tend to be a pain, and
for that reason one should use a more advanced coding technique called late
binding, (my super merge does this). This means your code will run on any
computer with any version of word annual not have to set a reference
(However let's just leave this issue of early or late binding for another
post and another learning session).

Ok, now lets try to compile again (debug-compile). This process of
compiling over and over is appropriately called "compiling and debugging"
code. So, there is a good reason the compile option is under the debug menu
so when you're debugging and trying to fix code you'll be compiling over and
over all day long as you work your way to fix problems in the syntax of your
code.

Ok, when I try to compile again I get an error on the following line

With Wrd.ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
.Item("FullName") = strFullName ---- error message

The compile error I'm am receiving is:

---------------------------
Microsoft Visual Basic
---------------------------
Compile error:

Invalid use of property
---------------------------
OK Help
---------------------------

(as a side note most times when you are looking at a dialog box, you can hit
control C. and the contents of that dialog box who will be copied into your
paste item, I did not have to type the above error text into this message, I
simply hit control c, then came back to this message and then pressed
control v to paste the above).

Ok, So at this point the only property I am using is something called
".item"

Item is a read only propoerty, and can't be modifed. However, looking at
other bookmark examples, we see that there is somthing called "selection",
and that's what we need to use.

(rememember, I never used bookmark merge, so this all new to me also).

Anway, the follwing seems to work better:

.Item("FullName").Range.Text = strFullName

So, you have to use .Range.Text to represent what the actual text for the
bookmark will become.

Continue to make the above changes and each time you make a change to your
code, try going debug-compile to see if your changes now actually compile.

Eventually your code should compile. However the fact that compiles
correctly doesn't necessarily mean it'll run correctly. We now have to work
and find what's called runtime errors. For example our code can compile now
but if you haven't set the value of strFullName, then your code still will
not function correctly now.

I'm not sure where you got the code example to use ".item", but clearly
using ".item" was incorrect and clearly it did not compile....

--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

Albert,

Thanks so much for taking the time to demystify me. I really appreciate it.
The routine works, but I agree with you that your solution is better, so I
am on to that.

Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

--
Rip West
Saint Paul, MN

SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services has free 'export report to word'
functionality (in addition to Excel, PDF, HTML, TIFF, etc)

you shoudn't have to write code to do this-- this is built in
functionality (for a real database)



On Dec 14, 3:13*pm, "Rip West" wrote:
*I am trying to copy a routine written by Alan Simpson to print a contacts
address directly to a word document. I have created the word document with
bookmarks for FullName, Street, Address, and Salutation. When I run the
routine, the compiler balks on the *'with' items, saying 'invalid use of
property'. I know the routine finds the word document in question, because
if I rem out all the with items, the document is displayed. Routine is given
below. Any help appreciated.

Private Sub cmdMergetoWord_Click()
* * Dim strFullName, strSalutation, strStreet, strAddress As String
* * Dim Wrd As New Word.Application
* * Set Wrd = CreateObject("Word.Application")

* * Dim strMergeDoc As String
* * strMergeDoc = "C:\Users\rip\Documents\Data\word\OneContact.D ot"
* * 'Open the word document, make it visible
* * Wrd.Documents.Add strMergeDoc
* * Wrd.Visible = True
* * With Wrd.ActiveDocument.Bookmarks
* * * * .item("FullName") = strFullName
* * * * .item("Street") = strStreet
* * * * .item("Address") = strAddress
* * * * .item("Salutation") = strSalutation
* * End With
* * Wrd.ActiveDocument.PrintPreview

End Sub

Rip West
Saint Paul, MN