Building documents via lists in an Access 2007 database?

[IncidentalProgrammer]

Hi, all!



I'm trying to plot out something my boss would like added to our database, and I'm not sure if Access is even capable of doing something like this. I haven't been able to get a solid answer out of Google, either (just how to PDF tables, forms, etc).

What she wants is for this feature to build a full, official insurance policy document. I figure I can do the declarations page (coverages, rates, etc) via a report, and PDF that, but the problem I see is where there are multiple other documents (endorsements) that have to be attached, and these can vary from policy to policy. I'm going to have it set up so that certain endorsements will pop up in a list in policy creation as being required for the policy, based on the parameters on that policy, and I'll build in the ability to add others manually from the list of those available. The plan is to store the actual endorsement forms on the shared drive, rather than typing them into the database, both to preserve their layout, and save space in the database. Is it possible to program Access in such a way that it could read the list of endorsements selected for the policy, pick the right files from the library on the network, and attach them to the part of the policy that it has already produced? Either as PDFs, or as word documents (everyone here knows how to convert to PDF, so I'm not worried about it).

I've done a tutorial in the past where I was able to get a list of files to print into the Immediate Window, so I know that Access can get out there and find them if you tell it where to look, but is it capable of grabbing them and possibly attaching them to another document?

For right now, all I'm trying to figure out is IF it's possible. The how will come later down the line (I have quite a bit of building to do before I can even start this part), but the "if" is going to determine some courses of action I take now.

Has anyone tried something like this? Know if it's even theoretically possible?

[ranman256]

No declarations needed. I would build a report OR if you already have PDFs, then build a table to house them.
I myself would keep the pdfs in a document network folder.
my tForms table would have the paths.
[docID] [path]
CoverageA \\server\folder\doc\coverageA.pdf

another tDocGrp table would have the GROUP of the documents
[group] [docID]
Auto CoverageA
Auto WaiverB


then you can build groups of documents, and view them. The network allows you to see them easily w/o access.

[June7]

Possible, not simple.

Code can manipulate PDF files to delete pages or merge PDF files so can build a single file for print output as a continuous document. Otherwise, sequential print individual documents as separate print jobs which has issue of mixing with other print jobs output if sent to shared printer.

Or build all as Access report. All info for constructing documents (coverages, rates, declarations) would be data in lookup tables and then have a 'build' table that stores ID of selected records as elements of document. Report would have query that joins tables as RecordSource.

[IncidentalProgrammer]

This is absolutely great. Thanks so much, guys! Not even as scary-sounding as I thought it would be.