storing a Word document as a customprop

Jan Schenkel janschenkel at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 12 16:29:58 EDT 2009 

Oh, the Rev part doesn't need any special treatment and "put into URL will indeed happily overwrite file completely - it's on the Word side that you need to be careful: when you use Word to modify your template RTF document, you should always use 'SaveAs' to avoid issues.
Some versions of Word may not exhibit this problem, but I'm 99% sure that Word 2000 was one of those annoying versions that would do an incremental save - only writing the differences between the new and the old version, rather than creating a clean new file.

Jan Schenkel
=====
Quartam Reports & PDF Library for Revolution
<http://www.quartam.com>

=====
"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)


--- On Fri, 6/12/09, Peter Brigham MD <pmbrig at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Peter Brigham MD <pmbrig at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: storing a Word document as a customprop
> To: "How to use Revolution" <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 10:58 AM
> Cool. That seems to work. Re the
> incremental save part -- if I am doing a "put (whatever)
> into URL..." and the URL specifies the same file name and
> path, then shouldn't it just be overwriting the file anyway
> each time? I would think that the "put into URL" form calls
> on system routines that simply replace the file and that
> Word would be totally ignorant of the process.
> 
> -- Peter
> 
> Peter M. Brigham
> pmbrig at gmail.com
> http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig
> 
> 
> On Jun 12, 2009, at 12:14 PM, Jan Schenkel wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Actually, RTF documents are pretty much on-par with
> native Word documents as far as features are concerned, and
> tables definitely work - perhaps not in TextEdit or WordPad
> ; but if you have a full Word version, it should be just
> fine.
> > Give it a try: save your Word doc as an RTF, suck it
> up in a Rev custom prop, do the merge, and save it as an RTF
> again. Tip: when you modify your template, always do a
> 'SaveAs' or Word may produce an 'incremental' file, where
> your merge fields are garbled and cannot be replaced.
> > 
> > Jan Schenkel
> > =====
> > Quartam Reports & PDF Library for Revolution
> > <http://www.quartam.com>
> > 
> > =====
> > "As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish
> at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)
> > 
> > 
> > --- On Fri, 6/12/09, Peter Brigham MD <pmbrig at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> >> From: Peter Brigham MD <pmbrig at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: storing a Word document as a
> customprop
> >> To: "How to use Revolution" <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> >> Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 7:01 AM
> >> Bummer. I can't use RTF because the
> >> documents contain tables, and I'm pretty much
> stuck with
> >> that. I'll use my own FORMalizer utility to
> overlay fields
> >> on a PNG of the blank document and fill them in
> that way. I
> >> was exploring other possibilities...
> >> 
> >> -- Peter
> >> 
> >> Peter M. Brigham
> >> pmbrig at gmail.com
> >> http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:24 AM, Jan Schenkel wrote:
> >> 
> >>> 
> >>> The Word file format is binary, and may
> contain
> >> checksums that will not add up when you replace
> something in
> >> it. It's better to save the Word file as an RTF
> document (as
> >> this is not a binary, but text-based file format)
> and fill
> >> that up instead.
> >>> You may want to use the 'merge' function to
> make your
> >> life easier - see also the articles that I wrote
> for the
> >> RevUp Newsletter:
> >>> - The Power of Merge (revUp | Issue 55 |
> August 18th,
> >> 2008)
> >>>   <http://runrev.com/newsletter/august/issue55/newsletter2.php>
> >>> - The Word of Merge - part 1 (revUp | Issue 61
> |
> >> November 20th, 2008)
> >>>   <http://runrev.com/newsletter/november/issue61/newsletter3.php>
> >>> - The Word of Merge - part 2 (revUp | Issue 62
> |
> >> December 22nd, 2008)
> >>>   <http://runrev.com/newsletter/december/issue62/newsletter3.php>
> >>> 
> >>> HTH,
> >>> 
> >>> Jan Schenkel
> >>> =====
> >>> Quartam Reports & PDF Library for
> Revolution
> >>> <http://www.quartam.com>
> >>> 
> >>> =====
> >>> "As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more
> foolish
> >> at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> --- On Fri, 6/12/09, Peter Brigham MD <pmbrig at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> From: Peter Brigham MD <pmbrig at gmail.com>
> >>>> Subject: storing a Word document as a
> customprop
> >>>> To: "Use-rev mailing list" <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> >>>> Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 5:55 AM
> >>>> I would like to generate a Word doc
> >>>> stored in a customprop but I'd like to
> modify it
> >> first by
> >>>> script. I have a template successfully
> stored as
> >> the
> >>>> printDoc of this stack, with placeholders
> in
> >> applicable
> >>>> places like "<last>",
> "<first>", etc.
> >> However,
> >>>> this doesn't work:
> >>>> 
> >>>> on mouseup
> >>>>     put fld "Name"
> into tName
> >>>>     put item 1 of
> tName into lastName
> >>>>     put word 1 of item
> 2 of tName into
> >>>> firstName
> >>>>     put the printDoc
> of this stack into
> >> tDoc
> >>>>     replace
> "<last>" with lastName
> >> in
> >>>> tDoc -- * problem
> >>>>     replace
> "<first>" with
> >> firstName in
> >>>> tDoc -- * problem
> >>>>     put the printPath
> of this stack into
> >>>> pPath
> >>>>     -- contains
> something like
> >>>>
> "binfile:/Users/pmbrig/Desktop/wordTest.doc"
> >>>>     set the
> itemdelimiter to "/"
> >>>>     put
> tolower(lastName) & ".doc"
> >> into
> >>>> item -1 of pPath
> >>>>     set the filetype
> to "MSWDW8BN"
> >>>>     put tDoc into url
> pPath
> >>>> end mouseup
> >>>> 
> >>>> I get an error from the finder that the
> file
> >> "doesn't
> >>>> appear to be a Microsoft Word file." If I
> comment
> >> out the
> >>>> two "replace" lines in the script, the
> original
> >> template
> >>>> file is exported fine, and it opens fine
> in Word
> >> with a
> >>>> double-click. So there's something Word
> doesn't
> >> like about
> >>>> the replace operation. Is there any way to
> do this
> >> so I
> >>>> create the template document modified with
> data
> >> filled in
> >>>> from Rev?
> >>>> 
> >>>> -- Peter
> >>>> 
> >>>> Peter M. Brigham
> >>>> pmbrig at gmail.com
> >>>> http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig
> >>>> 
> >>>>
> _______________________________________________
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> >>>> Please visit this url to subscribe,
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> >> and manage
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> >>>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>>
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> >> 
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> > 
> > 
> > 
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