Sort of a mail merge question

[Paul Wagstaff]

Hi all

At the risk of shooting myself in the foot, I have a question that is in all
certainty off-topic, but if I may flatter a few egos, I've been continually
impressed by the breadth of knowledge/experience in this NG. so, I'd be
grateful if anyhone can help and/or point in me in the right direction.

I want to take records from an Access database and perform a 'mail merge' to
print out some basic info (name, address, a currency amount (e.g. 26.26) and
a textual version of the financial amount (e.g. "Not more than 27 pounds")
onto a giro (i.e. a continuous paper feed that will be sliced up and then
posted to customers as a bankable giro.

I realise that the source of the data (Access) is immaterial to correctly
aligning the data and printing it out, but wonder whether exporting to MS
Word and then figuring out a way to output this to a dedicated printer -
correctly aligning the data and recovering from any spoiled giros would be,
lets say, a challenge. We'd be talking about c. 1000 records per print-run.

So has this idea got any legs or do I need some professional input?

Many Thanks,
Paul

[Albert D. Kallal]

Would you not design a report, and pint it out?

I don't see the problem here at all. You got a great report designer in
ms-access. Layout the fields/data on the report, and simply print it out,
and you are done.

It seems what you want/ask is a talor made problem for ms-access, and the
reprot writer....
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal

[Paul Wagstaff]

thanks for replying Albert.

The giros are essentially a batch a paycheques & have pre-printed ID
numbers onto them (which I have no prior knowledge of) onto which I need
to 'stamp' my names & addresses therefore I can't (nor would I want to)
simulate their appearance. So replicating is out of the question.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Paul

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

[Albert D. Kallal]

Are we talking about a printing machine here?

What you said so far still does not stop, or disable the ability of using
ms-access to send out the data you need..

When you say mail merge...to what are you sending this to? Do you want to
send the results to word?

Or, perhaps the results need to be output to some file that the check
writing machine needs?

You are just not being clear here, but so far, what you ask for sounds like
a reasonable request, and is certainly within the realm of using ms-access.
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal

[Paul Wagstaff]

Albert

Apologies for the ambiguity & thanks again.

your penultimate para is exactly what I need to do. At the moment, staff
type out each payee's details, this data is sent to a printer & the giro is
printed out. repeat ad nauseum.

I already have the data in Access on our network, so wanted to export this
list to some file (no problem upto here) - load it onto a stand alone pc
that's attached to the giro-printer (though I suppose it's no different from
other printers?) & away we go...

(Your suggestion however of using Access reports seems to easy to good to be
true: perhaps there is something about our giro printer that prohibits this?
From what you're saying, I suppose not)

Thanks again
Paul
"Albert D. Kallal" <ka****@msn.com> wrote in message
news:MDY3f.200485$tl2.195371@pd7tw3no...

Are we talking about a printing machine here?

What you said so far still does not stop, or disable the ability of using
ms-access to send out the data you need..

When you say mail merge...to what are you sending this to? Do you want to
send the results to word?

Or, perhaps the results need to be output to some file that the check
writing machine needs?

You are just not being clear here, but so far, what you ask for sounds
like a reasonable request, and is certainly within the realm of using
ms-access.
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal

[Paul Wagstaff]

I thought maybe I'd overlooked some important aspect given the nature of
the printing material - but data is data is data- it's that simple!

Thanks again,
Paul

"Albert D. Kallal" <ka****@msn.com> wrote in message
news:QsV3f.189625$1i.32664@pd7tw2no...

Would you not design a report, and pint it out?

I don't see the problem here at all. You got a great report designer in
ms-access. Layout the fields/data on the report, and simply print it out,
and you are done.

It seems what you want/ask is a talor made problem for ms-access, and the
reprot writer....
--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal

[Albert D. Kallal]

Ok, so the end result is that this machine needs a "text" file of some type
in a particular order and format.

You need to grab the manual, or whatever, and find out what the machine
needs.

once you got the format, the you can

1) use the export features of ms-access to create a text file in the
correct format

2)
barring that ms-access don't have the correct export features/format, then
you can write some simple code in ms-access to OUTPUT the text file in the
format you need.

3) if the device supports windows printers, then you can make a report in
ms-access, and print directly to the device.

(Your suggestion however of using Access reports seems to easy to good to
be true: perhaps there is something about our giro printer that prohibits
this?
There might be. The printer might require a "text" only file (remember the
old dot matrix printers...they did not accept fonts, and graphics...but only
text data, and often, they could not work with windows).

If that giro printer supports windows output, then you likely can drive it
directly from ms-access (a reprot). If it does not support windows, then we
would generate the text file from ms-access, and then let the giro printer
chew on the text file.
From what you're saying, I suppose not)

Like I say, it is not 100% clear which of the two options we have to use
(but, at least we got the options!!)

I would just take a quick look at the manual, it should explain/point out
how to send data to the unit...

--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pl*****************@msn.com
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal