Replace old letterhead with new letterhead programatically

[Inga]

We have old letters with a graphic being used as a letterhead. We have
recently changed our letterhead to graphics inside the header and footer of
the first page only. The template created with the new letterhead header and
footer, automatically asks for a writer's name, inserts the date, and asks
for an addressee's name. I am having difficulty replacing the old and using
the new. Also, when I created the new, I wanted to set up a second page
header, but it errored out basically saying that the second page was not
there. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

To set up the second page header/footer, temporarily add a second page to
the template and then set up the required header and footer and then delete
the page before saving the template. When a letter that is created from the
template runs to more than one page, the header and footer for the second
and subsequent pages will automagically appear.

What difficulty are you having replacing the old template with the new one?
It should just be a matter of saving the new template in the templates
folder location, removing the old one from that location if necessary.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Inga]

I have replaced the old template with the new template, that is not the
problem. The problem is replacing the old with the new in old documents that
have already been created. I would like to create a macro to do it
automatically, but nothing that I have tried will replace the old with the
new. I have tried creating a new document, copying everything and pasting
into the old document. I have tried, inserting just the graphics in the
header and footer, that worked, but I could not manipulate the graphics while
in recording mode. I have tried adding the new template to the old document
through organizer and such, but that does not show the header and footer
graphics of the letterhead. I just don't know where else to go.

Thanks for the help on the header and footer issue. I will try that.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Why would you need to replace the letterhead in old documents? Surely the
whole point of keeping old letters is as a record of what you sent. You may
need that record should there be some legal dispute at a future date and
subsequently edited letters would seriously get in the way of that.

If however these are not letters but internal company documents, and they
contain a graphic to be updated, then that could be achieved with a macro
(provided all the documents were the same - it gets very complicated if they
are not). Tell use more about what exactly you want to change and where
exactly in the document (i.e in which header or footer(s)) it is located.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Inga]

We do not save over documents, just open and save as. But anyway. The old
letterhead has a graphic located at the top of the page (not in the header).
The new letterhead has a graphic in the header and a graphic in the footer.
We need to replace the graphic on the old letterhead with the new graphics in
the header and footer.

BTW, we are a law firm and a letter without a signature is not worth the
paper it is created on. We scan originals and keep a secured copy of signed
documents for future reference.

 

[Graham Mayor]

It is really bad practice to open documents and save as. It inevitably
results in someone saving over a wanted document. Hardly a week goes by
without someone complaining that they have done this and want to recover the
original.

Save the proforma documents as templates and create new documents from them.
Frankly I would create a new blank template and copy the text content from
the standard letter(s) into the new template before saving it as a template
for that document type. Better still create standard paragraphs as autotext
or autocorrect entries or even as separate text documents and insert them
into your new documents created from the template.

Producing a macro solution without access to sample documents and the
graphics and without knowing the Word version is frankly impossible.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Inga]

Thanks for the advice, but there is nothing standard about the letters other
than the letterhead. Everything else changes with each new letter. I have
saved a template of the new letterhead.

As for versions and samples. I would have given that information if I had
been asked. As of now we are working in Word 2007 with DM as our document
management.

We also do daily backups that are tested regularly in case problems such as
you mentioned occurs.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I for one do not understand why you want to make the old letters appear as
new letters. However, the only way to do it is to start a new document from
the new template and then copy and paste the content of the old letter
(minus the logo) into the new document.

While that process could be automated, I can't begin to think what you
Document Management system would think of it.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com