Embedding data into office documents from a remote data source

[Chopper Dad]

I am working on a recurring project that requires me to modify a dozen or
more data items in a variety of office documents. I have Word, Excel, Visio,
Web, and Project files that have to change every time we begin a new project.
(Most of the data remains static. I need to change location names, server
names, contacts, etc.) How can I use either SQL Server or Excel as a data
source for my documents, where changing the data in the data source
automatically updates the files within my project?

 

[Dian Chapman, MVP, MOS]

You need to connect to the data source with ADO (ActiveX Data Object).
I have a sample Word form with database connectivity that you can
download to see a sample of how this works.

Go here:

http://www.mousetrax.com/techpage.html#autoforms

And scroll down to the Please Fill Out This Form series of articles.
You'll want to read # 5, which handles connecting Word forms to an
Access DB. For Excel or SQL, you'll need to change the JET "provider"
to the one for those sources. You can find out more at this site:

http://www.microsoft.com/data

And this book is a good way to get started learning ADO:

http://www.mousetrax.com/books.html#ado

Or post further questions to the ADO newsgroup on this server.

Good luck!

Dian D. Chapman, Technical Consultant
Microsoft MVP, MOS Certified
Editor/TechTrax Ezine

Free Tutorials: http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
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