Ask the MultiValued Visual
Basic Expert - #3
(as published in Spectrum
magazine Mar/Apr 1997)
code updated
Aug. 21, 1998
To email your questions to "Ask the MultiValued VB
Expert", click here.
Copyright © 1996-98 Caduceus Consulting. All rights reserved.
Printing a Word document with data from
Visual Basic
Our manufacturing company requires the ability to read
data from a Pick-type host, edit it in Visual Basic, and then
print it from MSWord. I am told that this is possible, but the VB
manuals are not much help. The WinLink product from Via Systems
will get the data into VB but then I’m stuck. Can you assist
us? - R. Sullivan, Lavelle Industries
I am not surprised that you had trouble with this one. The
best bridge between Visual Basic and MS Word is OLE Automation. A
solution using ODBC can go directly from your database into
Microsoft Word, but would not easily give you the edit ability
using VB.
The problem with trying to use OLE Automation is that, by its
very nature, it goes between two different
applications, but the documentation that you really need is
usually found in neither of the corresponding
manuals! I have found the same difficulty applies when you call
Microsoft VB support.
The good news is that once the coding issue is solved, you
actually have a very powerful tool. [A sophisticated version
of this solution code is now downloadable from this site!]
For the purposes of this web page, I will assume that you already
have the ability to bring the data from your MultiValue host.
(The WinLink product mentioned above is just one way of doing
this.) The example that I am going to use will take data from
Visual Basic and merge it into a Microsoft template that any Word
user can layout. You can embed logos, set multiple fonts, and do
other formatting that would be very tricky if you were just
printing straight from Visual Basic.
The trick is to embed strings called ‘tokens’ in the
Word template document. The Visual Basic program will access the
document as an OLE object, search for the tokens, and replace
them with the actual data (limited to 255 characters!). It can
then save or print the document. The font settings used for each
token will be what are used for the data that replaces it.
Here is my sample Word template document (as only the Web's
HTML can show it), saved as c:\winword\quote.dot:
Caduceus Consulting Quote . .
. Date: ~{TODAY}
Prepared for ~{CONTACTNAME} of ~{COMPANYNAME}
Dear ~{CONTACTNAME}:
I estimate the cost of this service to be: $~{DOLLARS}
and that the work can be completed by: ~{COMPLETION}
I can then use the following Visual Basic code to invoke MS
Word, read the template document, replace the tokens with my
data, print the document, and then close Word:
Sub PrintBtn_Click()
Dim MSWordDoc As Object
Set MSWordDoc = CreateObject("Word.Basic")
MSWordDoc.EditReplace Wrap:=1 ' check whole doc
MultiRepl% = False
OldStr$ = "~{TODAY}" : NewStr$ = Date
GoSub DoReplace
OldStr$ = "~{COMPANYNAME}" : NewStr$ = Text2.Text
GoSub DoReplace
OldStr$ = "~{DOLLARS}" : NewStr$ = Text3.Text
GoSub DoReplace
OldStr$ = "~{COMPLETION}" : NewStr$ = Text4.Text
GoSub DoReplace
MultiRepl% = True
OldStr$ = "~{CONTACTNAME}" : NewStr$ = Text1.Text
GoSub DoReplace
With MSWordDoc
. . .ToolsOptionsPrint Background:=False
. . .FilePrint
. . .FileClose 2 ' avoid prompt for saving doc
. . .ToolsOptionsPrint Background:=True
End With
Set MSWordDoc = Nothing
Exit Sub
DoReplace:
. . MSWordDoc.EditReplace Find:=OldStr$,
Replace:=NewStr$, _
. . . . . . ReplaceAll:=MultiRepl%,
ReplaceOne:=Not(MultiRepl%)
. . Return
End Sub
Note that there is nothing special about the
“~{...}” characters - I simply chose them to designate
my tokens since they were unlikely to be mistaken for real text.
For more information on things that you can do to the MS Word
document object, see the “wrdbasic.hlp” file that is
usually supplied with Microsoft Word, or pick up a copy of the
book “Word Developer’s Kit” (Microsoft Press).
Also note that I believe this code will only work in Visual Basic
version 4.0 (sorry VB3 users!).
To email your questions to "Ask the MultiValued VB
Expert", click here.
Copyright © 1996-98 Caduceus Consulting. All rights reserved.
Revised: August 21, 1998.
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