[AccessD] Word Automation

Dan:

I use an updater that's a bit more sophisticated than the one at Tony's 
site.  Tony lives here in Alberta and we have shared more than a few beers 
since we met about 6 or 7 years ago.

I never did determine whether the 'file in use' problem related to the 
graphic or the template.  I assume it was the graphic as I've never had a 
conflict with users concurrently creating files from the same template 
except when there was a linked graphic.

Our users run a terminal server environment via a dedicated interoffice 
connection or a VPN connection on the net.  What this means is that no user 
has a local drive, unless they are running a disconnected laptop.

Our envrionment does not allow dynamically linking ODBC files but users need 
data from new estimate files daily.  My solution was to move the necessary 
files to a prelinked location and reuse the existing links.  It works and is 
several orders of magnitude faster (seconds vs up to 20 minutes) than 
creating the link at runtime though it required me to link files separately 
for each user on a one time basis.  At one time I used the user name as a 
prefix to the file (table) name and had to manually link tables from the 
predefined location each time we had new user.  After fighting with that 
dozens of times over the years, I now represent each user with a number so 
that they just get the next available number for the duration of a session.  
When a user logs in, they get something like 13 or 05 and the linked table 
name in Access is usysItem13 or usysDb05 and the file name in the target 
directory is just the number (with the hidden file extension).  If every 
user had their own disk, I could easily have used the same file name and 
linked path and table name for each user.

Your suggestion requires me to create a linked template version for each 
template and then for each user (or user number or I'd be redoing a set of 
templates for each user as they are added) so that I can distribute a 
revised logos to a the user number folder.  Essentially, I'd have to create 
a complete set of templates for each user number, and then another new 
template for each user every time we distribute a new kind of document and 
insert the graphics manually each time.

I'd rather write a 10 line revision to my existing office letterhead 
procedure to insert and size a couple files, or copy a version of it in 7 or 
8 Word Template files to embed the graphic location designated by the 
procedure.


Ciao
Jürgen Welz
Edmonton, Alberta
jwelz at hotmail.com



>From: "Dan Waters" <dwaters at usinternet.com>
>
>Jurgen,
>
>I have a possible solution to the logo linking from a single server.
>
>Take a look at Auto FE Updater.  It's at
>http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm.
>
>This is intended to automatically update a client FE when the FE master 
>copy
>on the server is changed.  However, it does this by uploading everything in
>the target folder when anything in the target folder has changed.  So, when
>you change one logo, the next time the user logs in, all the logos in the
>folder automatically get uploaded to the client PC.  Then, the logos can be
>linked without causing a conflict.
>
>You'll need to review the above site for the whole story.
>
>Good Luck,
>Dan Waters