letterhead as linked header/footer

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This is my first post. I am responsible for 8 LANs within a state government agency that is connected to a WAN of 120 LANs. My 150 users have very varied skill levels, only using the PC to get their work processed. I am charged with making their PC work as simple as possible. We are currently running Windows NT on the LAN with Win95/Office 97 on the desktops.

I have over 800 templates set up for the users that all contain letterhead within the header and footer. For years I have changed each one manually as governors/agency heads come and go. This is where I need your help. There HAS to be an easier way.

I tried setting a source doc with the letterhead info inside the users’ template share and linking each template to the source doc so that I only would need to change the source. The problem I’m running into is that if a user saves a document based on one of these templates on the user’s share on a different file server, the letterhead link can’t be found and “Error! Not a valid link” is the header and footer.

When I check the link, the generic path does not show. Instead of leer5s1serviceformssource.doc the link is to source.doc. Even if I change the link on the template, documents created from that template only show the “source.doc” link path.

And I may be going about this the wrong way. I am very open to any suggestions you have about how to make this process easier for me the next time I change the letterhead, as well as making it very simple for users.

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Is the tree structure on each server the same (i.e. “serviceforms”)? How about an “auto-open” routine which creates the link and then unlinks it?

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The tree structure is *like* that, but it would be possible to create auto-runs for the few different ones I have. Would I have to add that to each template manually?

I think what you’re saying is that I’d want the link at the time the document is created from the template, but then I’d want to unlink it to solve the Error! no link found problem. But my template would remain linked to the source document so changes can be made to the source and update to the templates.

Am I headed in the right direction?

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That’s where I was going, yes. Or, alternatively, if the tree on each lan is similar/same — then the linked object can be on each server… 8 changes is still better than 100s…

Just a thought.

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I will play with the auto-run, because I do have the link set on each server and that’s where I run into “Error! Link not found” when the user saves the document to a different server and opens it later. Thanks.

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Hi Jody
What a nightmare.

Is there a way that you can interrogate the userinfo in the NT account database.

The following extract was given to me by a colleague. I am not a programmer nor much of a network adminstrator. The two functions interrogate the AD on my 2000 Server and returns the userFirst Name. My idea is to populate bookmarks …. I have also used a similare technique in Novell using a routine supplied by Novell consulting…
———-
Declare Function GetUserName Lib “advapi32.dll” Alias “GetUserNameA” (ByVal _
lpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long

Sub whoAmI()
Dim strName As String
strName = ClipNull(GetUser())
MsgBox (strName)
End Sub

Function GetUser() As String
Dim lpUserID As String
Dim nBuffer As Long
Dim Ret As Long
lpUserID = String(25, 0)
nBuffer = 25
Ret = GetUserName(lpUserID, nBuffer)

If Ret Then
GetUser$ = lpUserID$
End If
End Function

Function ClipNull(InString As String) As String
Dim intpos As Integer

If Len(InString) Then
intpos = InStr(InString, vbNullChar)

If intpos > 0 Then
ClipNull = Left(InString, intpos – 1)
Else
ClipNull = InString
End If
End If
End Function
—————-

Perhaps the programming / NT gurus can help us further.

Regards
Geof

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I don’t have administrator rights on the LANs and the ones that do are extremely proprietary. But I certainly appreciate your thoughts.

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Take a look at the letterhead system on my download page (http://www.addbalance.com/word/download/)

This may not be the best way to set up letterhead, but it is a way that works for me. It consists of modular components so that changes to a letterhead are reflected in all form documents created from then on while documents that were created earlier remain unchanged.

Another way to do it would be using fields linked to AutoText entries stored in Global templates. If you do this, though, you want to have some kind of macro that unlinks the field when a new document is created so that stored documents are accurate.

See: Template Basics (http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm) for more on templates (user and workgroup), global templates and Normal.dot.

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Thanks a lot to everyone. I think I have the tools I need now to get this task accomplished. You folks are wonderful!

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