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Access report w/TOC & Word documents

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by amy123

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Currently, I am “trying” to create one report in Access 97 that holds several sub reports and Word documents. It would be most fantastic if this report includes a table of contents. Unfortunately, I have run into several issues. Any advice/help is greatly appreciated!

1. I can create a “table of contents” for a single report, but I do not think it will work with a report that holds sub reports. Has anyone been able to create a TOC with a report that holds multiplesub reports in Access?

2. I have tried to include my Word documents as linked OLE objects in Access without much success. It is not a problem to include the file as an OLE object in a table. I am finding it difficult to include the OLE object on a report. When I place the OLE object on a report, it only displays as much of the contents as the object size. OLE objects do not have a Can Grow property. Obviously, changing the Size Mode does not work either. The Word documents are not static documents. They will constantly change. Therefore, I cannot simple create a bound object and size it to fit the Word document, as the size (or pagination) of the document might change. Has anyone successfully included a Word document in an Access report?

I have thought through all my possible options, and I cannot find a resolution that is efficient for both maintaining the report and those using the report. I have considered creating a Word shell and importing the Access reports, but that will not work for me. I have considered doing a very large and “chain” Mail Merge, but that also will not work.

4 replies

by dklippert

I vote for a Word Merge doc. Youhave more control over formating, page numbers, TOC, etc.
You can construct Queries, and tables that include any information that might be found in a Report.

by amy123

Unfortunately, I cannot create one Word Merge doc. I tried that. My report consists of 10 separate (not linked) Access reports and 4 Word documents. In the report I am creating, they are interdispersed. When I create a Merge doc, it creates the shells but I still then have to merge the data with the shells. When I try to link the 10 merge docs together, Word gets grumpy. Also, I can see a whole (new) handful of issues when I try to include the Merge docs, the pre-existing Word documents into one file. A Master & Sub document would not resolve this problem, either.

Thanks for the response, though.

by wordworker

While your intent is laudable, your whole approach is flawed and you need to re-think it from scratch. Offhand I'd say your best move here is to export your Access reports to Word document and then OLE in the Word documents, not the Access report objects.

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