Letters printed via access database

[newbie666]

Hi all,

Hope you can give me a few pointers as to where to start looking to solve a problem I 've been landed with.
I'm no access expert, so this has thrown me a bit.

I have written a database for repairs that come into our company, but we also want it to have a couple of buttons that when pressed automatically prints of a reciept letter to send the customer and a basic fault report to place with the item tha tis sent to the repairer. Then another for when the repair is back with us that prints out a delivery note and address to go with the item on it's return to the customer.

I have found ways to make mailing lists from the entire list of records, but cannot find a way to do it on a per record basis. Basically all it needs to do is copy the entries in the fields for name, address, item and item code into a word document, once I can do one of the letters I@ll be able to adjust it to do the rest but am stuck not knowing where to start.

I'd guess it'd have to be done with VB, something I've never really used before but am trying to teach myself the basics of now.

Has anyone got any ideas of where I can find a ready written script that I can alter to fit into my particular database?

Thanks in advance!

 

[KeithG]

Are you familar with Mail Merge with MS Word. You can create a template letter then have Access fill in the blanks with the custmer name and stuff.

 

[bluenose76]

The way to do this is with a report.

Write your standard letter as you would in word but leave the customer specific detail out. Put this data intot he body of the report in design view.

You now need to add text boxes that are linked to the records in question.

this will print your standard letter for as many users as you wish but with unique details.

Hope that this helps.

Bev

 

[newbie666]

thanks for the speedy reply,

Yes word isn't anywhere near as mysterious as access is to me. I have the template set up in word, it's the access part of it that I'm having problems with. To make a button that copies just certain fields into the word doc, in the right places.

 

[newbie666]

The way to do this is with a report.

Write your standard letter as you would in word but leave the customer specific detail out. Put this data intot he body of the report in design view.

You now need to add text boxes that are linked to the records in question.

this will print your standard letter for as many users as you wish but with unique details.

Hope that this helps.

Bev

Would that not print out a (unique) letter for every record? Whereas I Just want it to print the record I happen to be working on at the time. Sorry if I seem dumb, I've actually been in IT support / web design for 10 years but somehow never really had much to do with access!

 

[KeithG]

You could do this with an Access report. You need to change Detail Section Property to print on a new page. That should get each record on a different page.

 

[GaryPanic]

Will the bulk of the message be the same ie
dear xxxxxxx
re field on form
etc

if so use the access reports
this would then print 1 report(letter) per case

if this is what you are after a little access knowledge will get you their
I presume you can do qry ok

get a qry to extract the info required (yes it will get all and not 1 record which is what you want) but get the info first

Now on you qry you need to filter -restict the information critia

I hope that you record will have an unique id number that is visable on your form ensure that this is also in your qry
[Forms]![formname]![uniqid]

so the box forms! means that the qry will look at the form named formname and followed by ! and the fieldname in this case uniqid

there are tidier ways of doing this but in essense you are using access to merge all data into a report then limiting what you want to merge by the forms!for=mane!id if you type this in the critia in your qry and run it (raw)- it should ask for a number type in one that you know the info on and hey presto once you have one qry set up - do file and save as and give it another name -



recommend you get a access starter book - couple of quid or dollars depending on where you are from - i hve been using access bible (2003) and its a bit techie - good but i don't think u r up to this level yet this is more for power users - -- or cheat and go into a book store and read

 

[newbie666]

Will the bulk of the message be the same ie
dear xxxxxxx
re field on form
etc

if so use the access reports
this would then print 1 report(letter) per case

if this is what you are after a little access knowledge will get you their
I presume you can do qry ok

get a qry to extract the info required (yes it will get all and not 1 record which is what you want) but get the info first

Now on you qry you need to filter -restict the information critia

I hope that you record will have an unique id number that is visable on your form ensure that this is also in your qry
[Forms]![formname]![uniqid]

so the box forms! means that the qry will look at the form named formname and followed by ! and the fieldname in this case uniqid

there are tidier ways of doing this but in essense you are using access to merge all data into a report then limiting what you want to merge by the forms!for=mane!id if you type this in the critia in your qry and run it (raw)- it should ask for a number type in one that you know the info on and hey presto once you have one qry set up - do file and save as and give it another name -



recommend you get a access starter book - couple of quid or dollars depending on where you are from - i hve been using access bible (2003) and its a bit techie - good but i don't think u r up to this level yet this is more for power users - -- or cheat and go into a book store and read

I'll give it a go thanks, that did make some sense to me. The database was set up with a unique id number, the "repair number" in this case.

But you are completely correct, this is way above my knowledge so will try to read up a bit more. It's the typical scenario, the manager here knows I've done a lot of IT support and website writing in the past so that must mean I know how to do absolutely everything with computers!