Replies

Hey Phil, thanx!!
I was about to tell you that indeed I had both of the macros you mention, but I didn’t know how to handle them since they are stored as “word commands”. I don’t know in which template these are stored, and word will not let me modify them. However, I can run the macros step-by-step, and by doing this I found out the InsertPicture macro you mentioned prompted the same dialog box as when you do Insert | Image | From Archive (I have the Spanish ver. so exact menu names may differ).
When I was prompted, I realised there is one checkbox which says “Float over text”, and it was unchecked. I checked it and inserted a picture. Then I closed word, and it saved normal.dot, so I thought it might just be working. I relaunched word, and yes, now the checkbox is checked.

Guess I have to set myself a little appart from quick keyboard sequences (eg, Alt,i,i,enter is the keyboard sequence for my Spanish ver. to prompt the “Insert Picture from Archive” dialog box) and pay more attention to those little details. I dunno when, but I must have unchecked it sometime when moving around the dialog box with tab/shift+tab.

Thanks again to both of you.
Have a nice weekend

Yeahp, I know we people sticking to Office 97 are a minority… However, good ol’ word 97 still delivers some thrills (when it freezes)… er… fahgeddaboutit.
Anyways, thanks for your response. Now tell your friend to go fetch that book!!

Thanks a bunch! I will try this (on my home computer, where this problem is…) and tell you about it!

Start feeling I owe you big time… how many replies? Ten, fifteen? Thanx!

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

I could come up with the macro. Just gave the original code a little twist: the macro inserts the number stored in the txt increased by 1 after the Re.:; then copies the entire document (selection.wholestory / selection.copy); creates a new document; pastes the info in the new document; saves the new document as the number stored in the txt file added in 1 in a network directory, then closes the original template without saving changes. Result: a network folder with indexed files containing each their respective numbers in the Re.: field, and WITHOUT containing any VBA code (that’s what all the copy / paste stuff was about – the code remains in the .dot file, while the resulting .docs are “codeless”, so the customer won’t be prompted with the macro security alarm).

Thanks a lot Jeff to you and Charles too (he asked the post you linked me to anyway )

VBA… maybe I’ll start living for it

Sorry for the delay in response.

The idea is: have word automatically number documents in the Re: field. Numbers should not repeat. For example, I use the Proposal Template to create and send an economic proposal to the customer with a certain Re. number; then another one uses the Template and word will assign it another number. And so on.

Notes:

– The Template document should preferably not be in a network server for anyone to use, since sales executives should be able to customize it to their liking. So it’d be in each vendor’s HD.
– The numbers word assigns to proposals should not repeat (not only one sales exec.’s proposals but the whole sales team’s proposals). That is, none of the numbers Word assigns to a certain sales exec.’s proposals should match any of the numbers word has assigned to any of his other proposals nor any of the other exec.’s proposals.

I thought of an excel file stored in a network server that would have number “00000001” in cell “A1”; so I’d have word link to that number, and excel create the following immediate number below that cell / in that same cell (hadn’t defined it yet) with a simple macro for word to use in the next proposal. But the first step was: how to make word to get a number from the excel file. Then I’d figure the rest. So I checked Word Fields and started the Trial n’ Error phase.
Having read the field’s descriptions, the one that seemed to come closest to my pretensions was “Link”. But there is no “Browse” button to grab the excel file, just a field code sintax I don’t know how to handle… Now I realize the description “Inserts part of a file using OLE” must have something to do with pictures, right? I’m not sure.

Hope this wasn’t too confusing.

Didn’t know about shift+F10. Another way to get the Open With menu is right clicking on a file while holding shift. The file must be selected before you actually right click on it (must have the blue highlight files get when you click on them).

Hi Howard, your page is really cool, but I’m not looking for an entire book on VBA.

I’ve read one and overread several others and come to the conclusion that unless you decide to live for VBA, reading books is no real use (at least for me). You either know the whole of it or just the basics, I mean, VBA learning isn’t as linear as Word, Excel, PPT, etc. learning. VBA is sooo ample that if I wanted to find out how to write the code that would make word take the info from excel, I’d have to go thru one or maybe two books until I get to know a big part of it and only then come up with the right macro… thing I’m not willing to do since I decided “not to live for it” – at least so far .

Anyway, I manage to understand VBA code most of the times. If you would drop me the lines of code you happened to use for word to take info from excel, maybe I could edit and make them work for me.

And if any of you have info on word fields, I’d really appreciate it. I just can’t get them to work (I tried the Link field – totally clueless).

Thanks a lot

Hi MerC,

I’m using PowerDesk but won’t stick to it for folders encryption. I like the way Cryptext handles it much better (by the way, thanks for the advice!!). I’m currently testing both PGPDisk and Cryptext.

At a first glance, one issue with PGPDisk is that you must define the space of the encrypted unit beforehand, that is, you must resign, say, 600 MB of C: disk space to create the file which in turn will be used as the new virtual unit that will keep whatever you store in it encrypted. If you lack space in your C: but know that you will have that space available in the future, and need to start storing sensitive data right now, you would have to create a small Unit and go storing until you can free some space in C:, create a new, bigger Unit, pass the contents from the former Unit on to the new one, and then delete the former Unit. Otherwise, it’s real cool.

As for cryptext, it’s cool that you can see which files are encrypted (the prog changes their icons), which becomes a chore with PowerDesk. However, it

I am currently using PGP for classic, “symmetric” encryption purposes only (Self-Decrypting Archives creation), so losing my certificate isn’t really much of a pain. I’ll give ver. 6.0.2i a try.

Thanks for your help

Hey Stuart, thanks for replying.

I’m currently running PGP 7.03 and don’t know about this feature you’re talking about… Do you know if it has been removed?

I had thought of using PGP, but (excluding the “Virtual Disk Drive” feature you just mentioned, which I don’t know) as it not only encrypts but in the encryption process also zips files, it would take a long while to encrypt a, say, 2 GB folder. Same for the decryption. You cannot view single files with PGP, as you would with WinZip. Instead of entering your password, choosing the file you want to view and extracting it, you enter your password and the whole set of files is extracted. A third issue with PGP is related to the encryption method: when you encrypt a 2GB folder you must have another 1,7 GB or so (depending on the folder’s contents) available in your HD for PGP to create the new file.

Whoa. After I wrote this I checked your link and it appears that PGP Disk was a standalone program before version 6.0.2i. Then it was integrated with PGP. And from ver. 6.5 on, you must buy the commercial version to have PGPDisk bundled with PGP.

PGP ver. 6.0.2i is still available for free at the link you posted. Now, my questions come to:

– Should I uninstall ver. 7.03 before installing Ver. 6.0.2i?
– Is it feasible to install ver 6.0.2i in a different directory so as to keep the two versions?
– Provided I must uninstall ver. 7.03, do you know of any major features that I won’t be able to use with the older version?

TIA

Lefi, thanks for the app.

Unfortunately it’s not working properly or I’m not running it the way I should. I write the batch file using the printer’s shareneme, but to no avail. I believe I’m not mistyping, because when I make a typing mistake the DOS prompt will go:

“Found [N

Hey Leif,

It worked like a breeze!!!! The only gotcha is that if I want to set another printer as my default, I’ll have to edit all the macros in order to get them work right (i.e., set the new default printer as the active printer when the printing job is done instead of setting the old default printer as the active printer). But I can live with that .

I’d like to give your program a try. Many apps I use don’t show the Print dialog box, and a shortcut to redefine printers would be a very welcome addition to my Win98 survivor workarounds pack

Thanks

Yup, hadn’t thought of that… I mean, I knew I could create a new menu, but I had never put the feature to a real good use.

I’m more interested in knowing what causes a non-default printer to autoset as the default printer, though, because this not only affects office apps (which I can “fix” with a cople of macros as you described) but also non-office programs, and it’s a reeeal pain to go changing default printers .

Anyway, come to think of it, it would be useful to have this new “Printing” menu. But I’m not friendly with VBA… would you drop me the lines of code that worked for you? Maybe I can work out a bunch of suitable macros for me… There shouldn’t be any trouble, should there?

Thanks again

Leif, thanks for your prompt response.

From my experience using windows I understand that whenever you print in one application (e.g. Word), the printer you select will remain the active printer FOR THAT APPLICATION until you close the current session with it. Then it resets and the default printer becomes the active printer again. Same happens with other applications: PPT’s, Excel’s, and any other non-office application’s active printer doesn’t depend on which printer Word has been working with, or at least it shouldn’t. Please correct me if I’m wrong, what I’m telling I tell from experience.

So running your macros may come in handy for example if you’re working with several Word documents at a time and you want to print one to a printer other than the default, then print the following doc to the default printer, then a last document to a third printer without closing the current Word session. It would save you lots of time for sure.

In my case, things are a little different – the printer remains the default printer for ALL applications. I don’t believe this happens with only one file, but I’m not sure…

Besides, my toolbars are chock-full of zillions of customized buttons, so cramming a couple more for quick printing doesn’t seem to be a good idea .

Any other clues?

If I’m not getting it wrong, I should paste this code somewhere in the PPT Visual Basic Editor, but I barely understand how Excel’s and Word’s VB Editors work, and PPT’s seems to be a bit different… It doesn’t have modules (or worksheets for the case), so where should I paste the code?

Again, if I’m not wrong, I should create a User Form, and this would be the code for that form, right? Should I create any buttons? How do I do that?

Thanks for your help