>With my existing dos application written in Powerflex I gave my customer the ability to create letters in a crude, and do I mean crude, editor. I gave them the ability to insert "codes" into this document or letter that would be replaced by data when the letter was printed.
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>I give them the ability to enter codes that would access data from multiple tables, not just a single table, and some of these codes require some calculations to get the right data.
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>Anyway I have spent the last couple of days trying to figure out how I might go about this using word automation. I am not having much luck in find info on the topic. I have looked at the _mailmerge class that comes with FFC. And with their example I can see that I can create a word document and then scroll through the records. But I don't understand how, after the document is created and saved, that I would go about printing this document from some program that accepts selection criteria, for example.
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>In a nutshell I need the customer to have the ability to create a document and be able to include fields from multiple tables as well as "calculated" fields. I then would have a form that would ask for selection criteria and I would want to print this document for only those records that match the criteria entered.
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>I am wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction. Basically, I am trying to decide whether or not I should use word automation or try to develop this myself. Are there any other pitfalls I might want to consider, for example making sure 1000+ customers stay with the same version of Word?
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>Thank you,
>Paul

You might take a look at VisDocs from Codemine. I have used it for all kinds of forms and reports, and it would be a piece of cake to do what you want. It only uses Word to actually print the document (It also now uses Tx ,but that is an cost and you can you can do without it.
FWIW, I find it a lot easier than using VFP reports. Write your own code and with very little effort and you can produce almost any kind of report.

Geoff