I have a Word document which pulls in lots of data from SQL Server, using database fields (I have about 20 fields so far and it's growing). Basically it's a technical document which explains stuff and then pulls in data tables to complete the picture.



It's working well, but I have noticed that the database connection details are repeated on every single field - which doesn't feel like it will be easy to maintain if anything changes in the future.

I have tried defining an ODC file and then referencing that when I create the fields. The reference works fine, but Word then pulls all of the detail from the ODC file into the field itself - so I still seem to have the repetition issue.

I guess the simple question is whether it is possible to define a database connection once and then re-use it across many database fields and/or whether there is a different way altogether to bring the data in from SQL Server.

Thanks

You could try bookmarking one such database connection string, then referring to just the bookmark (via a cross-reference) for the remainder. If you use a SET field to create/maintain the database connection string, you could then store the database connection string outside any of the database fields.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]