• PStepanas

    PStepanas

    @wspstepanas

    Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 71 total)
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    • in reply to: Passing a value to the next Mail Merge record #2452116

      I think I’ve figured out that the answer to my original question is “No”, and  I think I know why.

      As far as I can tell, when you run mail merge, all fields are converted to text (or locked in or whatever the correct terminology is). Consequently, the output of a mail merge will not contain any fields at all.

      This makes perfect sense, in the context of an actual mail merge — you want all the merge fields to be converted to text — but it limits what you can do when you’re trying to use mail merge for automated document building, as I am.

      Please do correct me, if I’ve misunderstood.

      As for the style issue (my second question), I think you just have to occasionally reapply the styles with all fields displayed (Ctrl-Alt-F9). In other words, there’s no better solution than what I’m already doing.

      (I figured I’d post this in case anyone stumbles upon this thread with similar questions.)

    • in reply to: Passing a value to the next Mail Merge record #2450419

      Thanks, macropod.

      I think you could have shortened your reply based on the information I provided, but maybe I wasn’t as clear as I thought I was.

      What I’ve understood from your reply is that there probably isn’t any way to pass values from one record to the next. But it’s not really going to be an issue:  I need to merge some manual data with the API query, anyway, so creating an extra column manually is a much easier solution.

      As far as Styles go, I think the options I identified probably are best practice. I have decided to add 4 point lines as spacers, as it allows me to keep the data block on one page while allowing the subsequent description text to roll over to the next page.

      Now my only issue seems to be that the MERGEREC field ignores the SKIPIF field. Luckily, I can get around this, as I only need to identify the first record, which I can do based on the new column I’m adding.

    • in reply to: Visio Home Plan issues #2394754

      I usually try to restrict how much different software is on my PC — hence the plan to use Visio.

      But the 3D walk-through of Sweet Home does look interesting.

      I’d still like to find a Visio expert somewhere…

    • Yep, that’s pretty much what I figured.

      The user wasn’t even able to tell me exactly which keys they pressed, so user error seemed the most likely, and I guess Possibility 2 covers the “no Recycle Bin” thing.

      Thanks.

    • in reply to: Alternatives to Outlook #1853879

      I’m a bit worried about that, too, @jabeattyauditor.

      Parts of my Access installation were overwritten by Office 2016 updates, and I haven’t been able to access any of my local Office Help files for years.

      I found that clicking an MDB file would just give me a blank interface with a Login button, which I assume is the 2016 interface.  Opening Access 2010 directly triggered an installation progress bar and seems to have fixed that issue.  For now.

    • in reply to: Alternatives to Outlook #1851561

      This is may be a silly question, but I will learn something from the answer. Could you simply transfer your Office 2010 license and files to your new hardware? Or does Windows 10 not allow any older versions of MS Office to install and run ??

      I don’t think it’s a Windows 10 issue.

      I just figured that it might be time to update Office from 2010. Technically, my licence is MSDN, which probably isn’t even valid any more (hard to tell).

      The reasons I don’t just buy Office 2019 Pro are kind of:

      1. I’m not sure it even exists! Certainly, Microsoft are working hard to hide it.
      2. Access is apparently on its death bed. And the newer versions seem to require a Login, which is “never gonna happen.”
      3. I hate so many things about Outlook, this is a great excuse to leave it behind.
      4. All the “extras” from past versions of Office Pro have always caused me installation headaches (eg: OneNote, Publisher, aargh!).
      5. Budget has become a major issue for me. 🙁

      So the plan becomes:  buy a minimal version of Office 2019 that I intend to not upgrade for 5-10 years;  find a new email client (Thunderbird seems the right choice, though I will try eM Client, for comparison);  keep using Access 2010 for the three times a year I open an MDB file;  install Visio 2010 (I was lucky enough to get a fully legal licence for this, a while ago, and I love what I can produce!);  hope all the different versions don’t clash, and that I don’t lose my email (LOTS of backups).

      Thanks, everyone, for the help. <3

      PS:  If you know anything about how Access 2010 might interact with Office 2019 Home, please find and comment in my other thread (and I really do mean only if you’re an expert on Access and its interactions, I’m afraid).

      1 user thanked author for this post.
    • in reply to: Alternatives to Outlook #1843707

      Hmm. Interesting.

      At this stage, I’m going to test Thunderbird, and maybe eM Client (though their sales staff seem inclined to ask questions that were answered in the original request).  The only reason even I’m considering installing multiple trial copies is that this Windows installation will shortly be superceded and wiped — the more you install, the more likely system corruption.

      I find it hard to believe anyone would recommend Office 365 on this forum, since this very publication has consistently urged everyone to avoid it — at least, the last time I was reading every issue.  While it might possibly make sense in a multi-PC household (3 or more), in any other case I can envisage, it’s a complete rip-off, and only serves Microsoft.

      So no, I don’t think I’ll be buying Office 365.  Ever.

    • in reply to: Access 2010 with Office 2019 #1843705

      Thank you for your response, Lugh.

      I was hoping for an Access expert, but happy to hear your take as well.

      That said, I’m very surprised that you would recommend Office 365, since it is this very publication that has consistently argued against even considering it. Perhaps things have changed since I had time to read every issue, and perhaps it does make some sense for a multi-computer family. But for an individual like myself, it’s a huge rip-off.  You may not have noticed, but I get around 10 years of use from a single Office version.  And all of the add-ons are just marketing chaff — I would use none of them, and I think that’s true for most people.

      I apologise if that sounds harsh, but I’m getting extremely frustrated with every software developer, over the last five years (much longer, for Microsoft), trying to convince consumers that what they are doing is good for the consumer.  It’s not.  Software does not need to be riddled with bugs;  subscriptions are not a better deal;  live service games do need to be properly tested;  and “microtransactions” are never good value.

      Any Access experts able to weight in?

      1 user thanked author for this post.
    • in reply to: Alternatives to Outlook #1841719

      Thanks, PKCano and mn.

      I am hoping to side-step testing *every* alternative — hence the post.

      I did forget to mention it will be running on Windows 10. Oops.

      I couldn’t find any mention of Office Professional 2019 on Microsoft’s website — they’re hiding it *very* well.  And my memory is that the middle product is just called Office Business, rather than Home & Business, but that’s probably my mistake.  In any case, I’m not unhappy about switching away from Outlook, nor about avoiding paying for Access (I’ve seen reports that it’s being killed off, anyway).

      Actually, the easiest way I know to convert PST files to any other client is to copy the individual emails to Gmail within Outlook (or even email them to myself). Easy, but very messy!

      No interest in calendar — my phone does all I need.  Some form of address-book would definitely be useful, though preferably without Outlook’s approach of making underlying email addresses non-searchable (in many situations).

      I did see some recommendations for eM Client, but they conspicuously fail to describe their “Additional Features”;  guess they want us to do all the work.

      Thanks, heaps, mn, for the link to the import tool!

      After all that, I’m left with the following questions (forgot to include the last two in my original post:

      1. Is Thunderbird sufficiently supported to trust for the next 10 years?
      2. Is the Thunderbird version of colour-by-sender workable, or will I quickly get very frustrated?
      3. Anyone have experience of colour-by-sender for any other clients, eg: eM Client?
      4. Do all the main mail clients have support for local mail files (equivalent to PST) in addition to account-related mail storage?
      5. Do all the main mail clients implement rules for automatically moving some mail to sub-folders?

      Let’s see if we can eliminate some options before I move on to testing myself. 🙂

    • in reply to: Excel VBA exits on function call #1528547

      Thanks, Rory.

      So if I understand correctly, I should always declare local variables. That said, how do I declare an array of unknown size? (Specifically, one to be populated by Split().)

      Secondly, if I understand correctly, the reason my code was exiting without a pop-up error message is that the error was effectively being returned in-cell. If I wanted execution to stay in VBA, I need to create an error handler. That would allow me to debug the error directly. Is that right?

      Thanks again.

    • in reply to: A simpl(ish) way of getting the nth word #1527818

      At Paul’s link, we have:

      =SUM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1,”(“,REPT(” “,99)),”)”,REPT(” “,99)),{99,297,495},99)+0)

      As I understand this, the delimiters are replaced with 99 spaces, the MID() command is used three times simultaneously, and SUM() is applied to the three results. Dropping the latter two functions, I think the following will extract just the nth word:

      =TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(List, Delimit, REPT(” “,99)), 99*(Index-1)+1, 99))

      This avoids the use of a specific marker character, but assumes each list element has no leading or trailing spaces. Otherwise, try:

      =SUBSTITUTE(MID(SUBSTITUTE(List, Delimit, REPT(Mark,99)), 99*(Index-1)+1, 99), Mark, “”)

      I’ve checked both of these against my original formula, and they seem to work nicely.

      I believe the other requirement for any of these to work is that the total length of all items in the list is less than 99. (More simply, checking that LEN(List)<=99 should provide a buffer.)

      Conclusion

      Snakehips' approach (that Paul Edstein has linked to) appears to be beautifully adaptable to the problem at hand. The latter two formulae are shorter that my original and contain fewer references to the variables (just one each, in the first case). What's more, avoiding the FIND() function means an enclosing IFERROR() function is not longer needed.

      The only two issues I can see are: 1) If the total length of all elements in the list are longer than 99, the wrong results will be returned for later elements in the list (effectively a buffer overflow); and 2) that lists with many elements will temporarily result in very long strings, which might overflow the data type, or may slow down the calculation (probably only noticeable if the formula is used in thousands of cells). Both issues can be addressed by changing the buffer length from 99 (increasing or decreasing, respectively), as well as checking the length of the list.

      Excellent result! Thank you, Paul (and Snakehips).

    • in reply to: Want to return Data Validation list location #1502885

      Thanks, Maud!

      Exactly what I was after. 🙂

    • in reply to: Creating radio-button group using data from table (2010) #1409113

      Good thought, HiTechCoach, and good to know about.

      Unfortunately it doesn’t function deep enough to reach the button I was after. 🙁

    • in reply to: Creating radio-button group using data from table (2010) #1406780

      That’s a bit more simple than I was after, WendellB, though I guess it’s a nice-looking reference. I was more after instructions for how to build each possible type of element, and descriptions of what each setting does. You know, like a *Help System*!

      I have books, but the Ribbon appears to have made most of them obsolete, and I’m loathe to spend more money at the moment. I’ll keep “Inside Out” in mind for the future.

      HiTechCoach, cutting and pasting after the fact does make sense. I think I was thrown when the original wizard wouldn’t do what I want. Though it does make sense, I guess, since a radio button group needs to be a fixed size.

      Thanks all. I’m back on track.

    • in reply to: Creating radio-button group using data from table (2010) #1406566

      Thanks, guys.

      I’ll definitely have a look at Switchboard Manager.

      In the meantime, I’ve decided I’m just going to use a list box, since I realised that’s really the functionality I’m after.

      I didn’t need the radio button labels to change; I just didn’t want to have to type them in again when they were already elsewhere in the database (some are a bit long).

      I am still confused why the instructions I found for manually building a radio button group in Access 2003 don’t seem to have an equivalent in Access 2010. The problem was that I couldn’t find the setting that changes the type of option group (I think they called it an “Option Group Toolbar”, which is what I couldn’t find on the ribbon).

      I also don’t understand why some controls go into a multi-selection “table” in Layout view. Is there an Access 2010 form-building tutorial somewhere I could read that goes all the way from the basics to advanced features?

      Thanks for any further help. 🙂

    Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 71 total)