MSWordMergeVCL

TmsWordMerge For Delphi 4/3

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

If you installed WriteWordMergeData & msWordMerge prior to version 1.0, remove them before installing TmsWordMerge!

From Final Filer Software
(Pierre du Parte)
http://www.finalfiler.com
mailto:finalfiler@finalfiler.com
Release 1.2.1: Thanks, everyone!; Overview; Liability & Warranty; The Components; Installation; History (What's New?)

Thanks

Many thanks to Mark Radford [mradford@pandrsoftware.com] for cleaning up my code and making some great suggestions.

Also, thanks to Steve Weston [SWeston@compuserve.com] and many others who have shown me not to be so sloppy with my code and encouraged me to persevere with what appears to be a useful component!

Special thanks to Mark Newmister (mailto:Mnewmister@rig.com) for the ODBC Text disable/ enable code

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OVERVIEW

Components to help you merge the data from a Delphi Datasource with MS-WORD Mail Merge documents! There is a general (msWordMerge) component to do the various mail merge tasks and a wizard (wzWordMerge) that encapsulates the whole thing with a simple dialog.

For instant mailmerging with Word, install the components, drop the TwzWordMerge component on a form, attach a datasource and execute!

The components were developed with D3 and MS-WORD 8. They are untested with other versions.

Original Release 28/02/1998

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LICENCE: Free!
CONDITIONS OF USE-

GUARANTEES, WARRANTIES ETC.

ABSOLUTELY NONE (what do you want for nothing?).

RESPONSIBILITY:

ABSOLUTELY NONE BY FINAL FILER SOFTWARE!

Use these components entirely at your own risk.

DO NOT USE THESE COMPONENTS IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF USE!

Copyright

If you respect copyright legislation, then the copyright to these components belongs to Final Filer Software (1998). Feel free to use the component as you see fit, but if you make changes, how about letting the rest of us know?

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THE COMPONENTS:

The Main Components- msWordMerge

The Mail Merge Wizard- wzWordMerge
TmsWordMerge

The component takes a datasource and writes a text file suitable for merging with MS-WORD. It will optionally merge the data with a Word Document.

Note: TBlob fields are ignored.

The component has three public properties, no events and one method:

PROPERTIES:

Datasource-TDatasource that will supply the data
NameThe name of the TWriteWordMergeData
OutPutFileThe destination (txt) file. Note that you should supply the extension such as C:\Temp\mydata.txt

WordMergeDocument is a valid WORD (mail merge) DOCUMENT file name

FLAGS:

MergeOptions
FmsNew- Create a New Word Mail Merge Document
FmsPreview - Merge and Preview
FmsPrint - Merge & Print
FmsNoMerge - edit the mail merge document

METHOD:

Execute Call this to get the component to do is stuff

GetmsWordObject Returns the OLEVariant for msWOrd. If Word is not running, it’s started!

WordDocumentPath returns the pathname for Word's documents

WordTemplatePath returns the pathname for Word's template documents.

GetActiveWordDoc returns an OLEVariant pointing at the current Word Document

SaveActiveDoc Saves the current document. If the document has never been saved the Save As dialog appears.

SaveActiveDocAs (Filename: String) : Boolean – Attemps to save the active document by the filename

SelectWordTemplateFile Calls TopenFile Dialog and lets the user select the template for a new document

SelectWordDocumentFile Calls TopenFile Dialog and lets the user select the document to merge with

SelectMergeDataFile Calls TSaveFile Dialog and lets the user select the name by which to save the data file.

each of the above returns TRUE if the user made a selection and sets its respective property in TmsWordMerge.

Sample:

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
With WriteWordMergeData1 do
begin
DataSource := Datasource1;
OutputFile := 'C:\Windows\Desktop\result.txt';
Execute;
end;

end;

USING THE COMPONENT:

1- Drop the component on a form.; 2- Set the Datasource property to a valid TDatasource component; 3- Set the Outputfile path and name. This should be a text file!; 4- Set the WordMergeDocument which MUST be a valid WORD document file!
5- Select the MergeOption - New, Preview, Print or None!: 4- Call the components execute method.

NOTES:

If you DO NOT specify a WordMergeDocument name only the output file is written. No merge takes place.

If you set the MergeOption to fmsNew then

You must choose a WORD TEMPLATE document for WordMergeDocument. Use the WordDocumentPath function to find where the templates are.

TwzWordMerge (Merge Word Wizard)

A wrapper for a wizard type dialog that encapsulates msWordMerge and presents the user with several options:

Merge and Print
Merge and Preview
Open merge document with data linked
Create a new document with data linked
Output data only.

There is only one property of note- Datasource. Set it to the TDatasource that will supply the data for the merge. Optionally you can set the CAPTION for the dialog form and the data file's name (OutPutFile). Defaults are used if you leave these items empty.

EXAMPLE:

procedure TForm1.btnMergeClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
wzWordMerge1.DataSource := Form1.DataSource1;
wzWordMerge1.Execute ;
end;

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INSTALLATION:

The Component:

In Delphi 3 Click File|Open
Select msWordMerge.dpk
In the subsequent Dialog click Compile
Click Install

Installing The help File :

SPECIAL NOTE:

If you get messages that WORD could not open the datasource, remove the TEXT driver from the 32 OBDC settings in the Control Panel!

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HISTORY

Version 1.21 9th April 1998

Two new properties:

ODBCTextOff

When the ODBC Text driver is installed, mail merging could not be invoked. Removing the driver would fix this. However, there is now a flag you can set to disable the text driver while the merge occurs. When merging is done, the text driver is enabled again.

The patch for this was supplied by Mark Newmister mailto:Mnewmister@rig.com

Delimiter

There is now a flag you can set to select comma delimited (default) or tab delimited export files

Version 1.21 25^th October 1998-10-25

Three new methods exposed in MSWordMerge: GetActiveDocument : OLEVariant;
SaveActiveDoc: SaveActiveDocAs(fileName: String);

Version 1.2 6th June 1998

Exposed two more methods-

PrintActiveDocument

PrintDocument(docName:String)

Version 1.13a 20th May 1998
Fixed - Neglected to include a critical file in the distribution of Version 1.13. Version 1.13 18th May 1998 Added 'Close Word' check boxes options to twzWordMerge. When set, these will force MS Word to close when the Wizard CLoses. Added new procedure to TmsWordMerge CloseWordObject- closes MS- WORD. Added two new properties-

CloseWord - When set to true Word is closed when the the tmsWordComponent is destroyed. The default is false

PromptSave- Set this to true if you want to be prompted to save the documents when WORD closes because CloseWord is set to true (see above). Fixed problem with Word sometimes remaining minimised on preview. Version 1.12

Fixed- component would not process calculated fields (many thanks to Fleming Ho).

Version 1.11 23^rd March 1998

Fixed bug whereby another instance of WORD starts with each call. Now only one instance is used. See Function GetmsWordObject. Numerous bug fixes and a bit more bullet proofing! Added function to msWordmerge that call the file save and file open dialogs to let the user specify/ select file names:

GetmsWordObject Returns the OLEVariant for msWOrd. If Word is not running, it’s started!

SelectWordTemplateFile Calls TopenFile Dialog and lets the user select the template for a new document

SelectWordDocumentFile Calls TopenFile Dialog and lets the user select the document to merge with

SelectMergeDataFile Calls TSaveFile Dialog and lets the user select the name by which to save the data file.

each of the above returns TRUE if the user made a selection and sets its respective property in TmsWordMerge.

Version 1.01

Added coding to cleanly close merge and merged documents after preview and print actions.

Version 1.0 - 9/3/1998
Added twzWordMerge, a 'mail merge wizard'.

Version 1.0 - 9/3/1998

Combined the two components into 1

Added function to create a NEW word document on the fly!

Included a set of flags to choose merge options because all the boolean options were getting out of control!

4/03/1998

Two new functions for the msWordMerge component:

TmsWordMerge.WordDocumentPath returns the pathname for Word's documents

TmsWordMerge.WordTemplatePath returns the pathname for Word's template documents.

28/02/1998

Fixed up a lot of stupid bugs and oversights in in WriteWordMergeData

Introduced the msWordMerge component which wraps up WriteWordMergeData and MSWord.

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