Quote:
Originally Posted by macropod
If the document is designed properly, all that should be required is the application of forms protection after the merge. Of course, if you're worried some changes might be made before the mailmerge is run, you could apply the protection beforehand and use vba to unlock it & run the merge. The problem with that approach, though, is that you'll have to write a lot of code to automate the mailmerge interface as well.
I'm curious, though as to why you believe mailmerge is required. As you say, you:
In that case, what you're asking them to do is to create a mailmerge from scratch for the purposes of your form. You can't even provide the mailmerge field names, as you don't know what they might be called in the data source. And what, when they've done all that, will be produced? If the result is to be nothing more than the population of a few cells in your table, mailmerge is not the way to go - simply give them a form with formfields they can fill in manually. That would require much less effort all round.
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The reason the merge is required is that the client is specifically asking for that. We have already provided them with a PDF form to fill out (and a Word version as well). This form is quite lengthy (more than just a few cells - there are over 50 fields for this one, others have many more). The reason for this request is they want to provide the user (physician's offices) the ability to pull the relevent data from their patient lists directly into the form, so they don't have to fill out all of the data in the forms one at a time.
Unfortunately, I cannot protect the document after the merge, since it will be the end user doing the merge. The protection is required to prevent the user from accidentally (or even intentionally) altering the table that is used to line up the fields with the form image. If a user accidentally drags a row of the table, and information shifts either before or after the information is filled, there could be huge legal issues for our client (extreme case - people die). Not necessarily likely, but our client could be legally responsible if something happens to the form. There is an absolute requirement already that the user cannot alter the text of the form (partly the reason for using an image of the form as a background graphic).
I do understand that fully automating the form would require quite extensive code, and may even not be able to work the way I need it to, (as well as requiring more time than the budget would allow), but I feel it is the only option I have to present to our client that is safe enough for them.
Thanks again, I appreciate your help. If there are any other suggestions, please let me know. But I have a feeling that my only real option is probably a fully scripted method.
09-19-2012, 05:57 AM
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