"Tables" in reports

[wodonnell]

A couple of questions in one here...

At the moment I have a mailmerge set up in MS Word which prints letters. The data for the merge is exported from an access database.

Question 1 - is there any simple way to import the word doc into Access so that I can print directly from the database? I have had a play and as far as I can see all I can do is import the document as a single object. In order to recreate the letters I have had to manually set them up.

Question 2 - On my letters in word I have some tables which are used for formatting as well as to create a sort of questionnaire. Is there any way to insert a similar table into an access report? The reason for this is that when I place 2 textboxes together on my report, even though I am using "snap to grip", the boxes often appear to be misaligned. I have tried entering exact values via "properties" but even though logic tells me everything should be lined up perfectly, its still not working.

For some reason, some of the lines in my "table" are appearing double thickness. I have tried to illustate this below. Boxes a and b are the same size, as are c and d. a and b have the same "top" value, as do c and d. Why then does the dividing line between a and c appear to be thicker than that between b and d?


-----------------
| a ...... |b...... |
========-------
| c ...... | d..... |
--------------------

Any advice on how to make a nice clean table which is aligned properly would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[GumbyD]

Reports

OK let's see here...

Question 1 - No - not really an easy way. You can create a text box and then cut and paste the body of the letter, but you will still have to concatinate the field values correctly into the body of the text box. However, if you are using the letter again and again it may be worth the time.

Question 2 - Yes you can make good looking table looking objects in Access. The trick is to turn on the borders of the cells and then use the sizing and alignment tools to put them all together. Makes sure you build all of the fields with space between them first and them align them to the top in a column and then to the right or left. If you make all the fields in a column the same length and height prior to aligning them it should look pretty good when you are done.

Good Luck!

GumbyD