Multiple entries

[Ziggy-R]

Hi guys,



So, I've designed a document that mail merges its data from an Access form, for easier data entry. The document itself is for late library books, and being only vaguely familiar with Access, I'm having a bit of trouble. See, I want to allow for multiple entries for the "Books" label in the form (in the very common event that the person has more than one overdue book), but I'm not sure how to do this. At the moment, I'm just seperating them by commas, then when I open the document running the merge, I have to manually put enters in to seperate them.

What I would like to have is a form label, then 5 boxes bound to that label as to allow you to enter up to 5 books at once, one in each box; however, when I try that, whatever's entered in a box, it duplicates that in to the other 4 boxes.

What am I doing wrong?

[ajetrumpet]

Others here may be over more help, but IMO I cannot make heads or tails of your problem description.

Would it be possible for you to upload two screen shots...one of your form and the other of the merge document?

[Ziggy-R]

Others here may be over more help, but IMO I cannot make heads or tails of your problem description.

Would it be possible for you to upload two screen shots...one of your form and the other of the merge document?

As you can see, I have a single box for "Books". Now, on the actual document, each book is seperated by a line break. With the one box on the form, I can only seperate by commas, not line breaks, so I again have to manually format it when it actually merges. I understand I could have several boxes bound to several labels (Book 1, Book 2, etc), but then if a customer only has one outstanding item, I'd have empty spaces from Book 2, Book 3, etc and again have to manually format it. See my problem? What I really need is a way to enter data into the form so I can have line breaks.

[ajetrumpet]

something just came to mind Ziggy. I really don't have a solution for creating multiple lines on a single word document for a dynamic number of records (that could change at any time). Although I do think this is possible, I've never programmed it.

But another slick idea might be changing your 'books' field to a memo data type. If you do that you can keep your merge document exactly the way you have it now (with one 'books' field) and merge it as normal with your Access records. The catch here would be to use the memo field to store the books with a 'vbcrlf' delimiter. I think this works, although I haven't done it quite a long time. Try entering your books into a memo field first by typing. Close the form and let the table refresh itself, then open the record back up and see if it condensed the new line characters.

If that doesn't work, you might want to try entering your book names through a control of somekind and using code to insert 'vbcr' or 'vbcrlf' after ever book name. Does that make sense? I'm almost 100% certain that a memo field will store the format of the data. If it does, you'd be in good shape because the word document simply reads Access data 'as is' when it's brought in. That's been my experience anyway.

Give that a go...that's my suggestion to you.

[Ziggy-R]

something just came to mind Ziggy. I really don't have a solution for creating multiple lines on a single word document for a dynamic number of records (that could change at any time). Although I do think this is possible, I've never programmed it.

But another slick idea might be changing your 'books' field to a memo data type. If you do that you can keep your merge document exactly the way you have it now (with one 'books' field) and merge it as normal with your Access records. The catch here would be to use the memo field to store the books with a 'vbcrlf' delimiter. I think this works, although I haven't done it quite a long time. Try entering your books into a memo field first by typing. Close the form and let the table refresh itself, then open the record back up and see if it condensed the new line characters.

If that doesn't work, you might want to try entering your book names through a control of somekind and using code to insert 'vbcr' or 'vbcrlf' after ever book name. Does that make sense? I'm almost 100% certain that a memo field will store the format of the data. If it does, you'd be in good shape because the word document simply reads Access data 'as is' when it's brought in. That's been my experience anyway.

Give that a go...that's my suggestion to you.

You uh, might have to go in to a bit more detail. I've only just started using Access in the past ~month, and I'm not terribly advanced; no experience with code, I wouldn't know what to do.

[ajetrumpet]

You uh, might have to go in to a bit more detail. I've only just started using Access in the past ~month, and I'm not terribly advanced; no experience with code, I wouldn't know what to do.

why don't you upload the database for me and I'll show you what I mean...

No need to include the source .doc for the merge...I'll simply show you how to enter multiple books into a memo field with line breaks (if it's possible). Deal?

[Ziggy-R]

Dealio, buddy.

[ajetrumpet]

Dealio, buddy.

what am I looking for?

form name?
box name?
anything else?

[Ziggy-R]

what am I looking for?

form name?
box name?
anything else?

Naw, just the "Books" field.

[ajetrumpet]

so...enter your books, one at a time and push the button. I did one record for you to show you how it looks in the table.

[Ziggy-R]

so...enter your books, one at a time and push the button. I did one record for you to show you how it looks in the table.

Forgot to attach it though? :P

[ajetrumpet]

Forgot to attach it though? :P

wow, you're almost as fast as me with responding. I attached it two seconds later mr. speedy