Sesame offers several ways to print information.  Here's a quick review of the Word Merge Utility that is supplied with the purchased version of Sesame.   This uses MS Word as the document printing program.

Unzip the files provided by running the Wordmerge.exe file found in the Utilities\WordMerge folder.

Print the 2-page document called Wordmerge Readme.

Find the document called Wordmerge.doc in the files that you generated by unzipping the Wordmerge.exe file above.  This document is some 15 pages, but you can reduce this to about 10 pages if you reduce the quite large margin settings of the document.  Print this document out.

By reading only the 2-page document, and the first 2 pages or so of the 10-page document, I was able to do my first "mail merge" using the sample files, and accomplished this in about 30 minutes total - from the time I expanded the zipped file.

Here's some notes & comments as they pertain to what is discussed in the documents above, and what I did.

My winword.exe file was in a slightly different folder than what is given in the documentation - so verify where your winword.exe file is located, and modify the included batch file (word.bat) accordingly.

As per the 2-page document:  Put the wordmerge.db and wordmerge.dat files in your regular Sesame database folder.  Put word.bat (modified if needed) in your main Sesame folder.  Put the List.txt file (supplied) in your Sesame docs folder.  Also put the 4 sample word-merge documents in your Sesame docs folder.

Run Sesame.  Open the Wordmerge.db database.  Click on Customers in Search/Update.  Access 1 or more records (there are 80 sample records).  BE CAREFUL... if you are not - you may start printing all 80 records.  I suggest looking at the database, and retrieving only 1 record using a known value in the KEY field.  Be sure the Sesame window is large enough so that you can see the "Print Word Merge Letter" button below all the fields.

Click on "Print Word Merge Letter".  A small window opens near the top, with 5 options.  Pick one of the options, but don't pick the 5160 Address Labels option.  The window changes to offer 2 options to print:
  -  ALL Retrieved records
  - THIS record only

Pick  "THIS record only"
Window opens to confirm which document to print and which record(s).  Answer YES.

MS Word opens - I get a window asking to confirm running an SQL command to place data in a document.  I'm running Windows XP Home edition.   Answer YES.

Document appears on screen with merged data.

I clicked on the Printer icon in MS Word

DOCUMENT PRINTED!!!

Extensive information is contained in the remaining pages of the 10-15 page document above, that will help you set this up to meet your needs.  By using MS Word to create your documents you have significant flexibility and power to provide the printed output that you need.

There may be changes that can be made to make this run even more fluently - but I haven't tried to do this yet.

T.J.

I can use the Word merge feature with

// Fields available for merging
     F[1] = "patientid";        F[2] = "itemextamt";     F[3] = "lastname"
     F[4] = "homephone" ;        F[5] = "workphone";     F[6] = "Homestreet"
     F[7] = "HomeState";        F[8] = "homeZip" ;     F[9] = "homecity"
     F[10]= "Emailhome";        F[11]= "insconameprimary"; F[12]= "insconamesec"
     F[13]= "DateEntered"; F[14]= "cellphone";  F[15]= "insuredemployer"

Successfully only with the fields that are in the primary database I am running the command button logic from.  It does not return the values from fields that are on subforms.

Do I need to specify those fields some special way? Is there something I am overlooking? I have not read anything in the manuals or wordmerge.doc document explaining this.

Thanks

Robert,

I don't know the WordMerge application very well, but I do know that you'd definitely need to adjust the code to access the subform elements. You can't just reference them by name because:

1. There is no element by that name on the main form. Without using the subform access functions (as you have been doing in other areas), Sesame does not know where to look for these elements.

2. You may have more than one subrecord. Sesame will not just "know" from which subrecord to get the values.

I'm certain that WordMerge can be altered to work with subforms, but it is not going to work without a chunk of code to iterate throught he subrecords.  How that code looks depends on what you are trying to do. It will be different if you want to make one Merge letter with all the subrecords on it, than if you want one Merge letter for each subrecord.

[quote author=billgordon
I have Word from Office XP and it is not even close to the wordmerge directions starting on page 12

- hugh [/quote]
I opened the document to p 12 to see what specifically you were referint to. That is where the instructions to create a mail merge letter begin, and that is very dependant on the version of Word.
I find "The easiest way to make additional Word merge documents is to open one of the sample files, edit it, and use File, Save As to give it a new name." (from the README.txt)
Shouldn't matter much what version of Word you have.

Quote:

Peter,
The simplest thing to do is probably to print the form, or create a separate form within Sesame that looks like the invoice with a line item section big enough for your largest list of items. Then print that form. (This assumes correction of the printing problems some users are having with some printers. Release 1.0.1 is due "very, very soon.")