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Word Template File

Caleb Hansen

3 years ago

How can I take the following and use a template word file I created to output to:

DoCmd.OpenReport "BidR", acViewPreview, , "ProjectID =" & ProjectID, , "False"
    DoCmd.OutputTo acOutputReport, "BidR", acFormatRTF, _
        "\\Operations\Project Files\Bids\" _
        & Format(Date, "yyyy") & "\" & Me.ProjectName & "\" _
        & "Bid Files\" & Me.ProjectName & " - Quote - " _
        & Format(Date, "m.d.yy") & ".rtf", True, _
        "\\Operations\QUOTE TEMPLATE.dotm" 'I thought this is where I could point the direction to where I have my template file
    DoCmd.Close acReport, "BidR"

It is not using my template file "QUOTE TEMPLATE.dotm". Please help.

	Kevin Robertson @Reply 3 years ago
It looks like you are using the wrong extension for a template. .dotm is a Word Macro-Enabled Document. .dotx is a Word Template.

	Caleb Hansen OP @Reply 3 years ago
I tried .dotx as well and it's the same result.

Kevin Yip @Reply

3 years ago

Word templates don't work here. DoCmd.OutputTo only works with templates for HTML and ASP documents. To actually use a Word template file, you need to use Word VBA that will allow you to use templates properly. You need to create a .dotm (not .dotx) file, which is a macro-enabled template file that will allow you to put code inside. Put Word VBA code inside the template file that can grab data from Access. It's a totally different thing to implement. It's simple to run DoCmd.OutputTo, but simple things can't accomplish complex tasks.

	Caleb Hansen OP @Reply 3 years ago
Thanks Kevin and Kevin. I was worried about that. You think that might be something that Richard could make a techhelp on? I really need to implement this somehow.

Kevin Yip @Reply

3 years ago

I don't have access to many of Richard's courses so I don't know if he covers this in his Word courses. But you may consider taking a shortcut: use DoCmd.OutputTo to create your .rtf file in Access, then in Word, insert the .rtf file into your document. The Word VBA for that simple:

Selection.InsertFile FileName:="MyFile.rtf"

This is same function as in Word -> Insert -> Object -> Text from file.

I don't know how your Word template is set up, but if it is just a letterhead with a lot of blank space below, then inserting the .rtf file into the blank space would be the easiest.

Caleb Hansen OP @Reply

3 years ago

It's not in his output to word video. He talks about making more videos for creating word docs from Access reports but I haven't found any as of yet. I tried your method and the formatting gets all screwed up. It's the same as copying and pasting. For some reason when I outputto to an RTF file from Access it comes out just like the PDF version, but if I copy and paste that text over to another word doc things get really weird. Even if I keep source formatting, etc.

Kevin Yip @Reply

3 years ago

You can use DoCmd.OutputTo, then open the resulting file in Word, and use Word VBA to add whatever extra material that you would have got from the template. What sort of template is it? Letterhead, water mark, etc.? If the template simply adds an extra header, footer, graphic, etc., then you can add them to the document with Word VBA. If your template has formatting information like Word styles, it's a bit trickier.

	Caleb Hansen OP @Reply 3 years ago
It's just the header and footer. I've actually started doing this in the Access VBA. It works well, except that it adds a bunch of odd blank space between the different sections of my report. I'll keep playing with it to see if I can fix that somehow.

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