I have a problem with part of my software which allows users to set up
their own forms and letters as RTF documents in Word, bringing the
required data into the document from the database via codes in { }.
It all works fine when they print the letter/form on letterhead; but
now that they want to email, they need to include the letterhead as
part of the document. This just isn't practical with RTF - the
letterhead makes the document too large.

I was wondering if anyone knows :
a)Is there a way to get a letterhead attached to a document prior to
emailing so that it doesn't have to be stored in the doc?
b)Is there a better way of doing all of this - i.e. not in RTF.

Just to explain the process a bit:

The client sets up a Standard Word Document- e.g.

Dear {GREETING},
Re: Sale of property at {ADDRESS}
I am in receipt of a contract for the sale and purchase of the above
property from {SELL.AGENT} and understand from {SELL.AGENT.REP} that
you have nominated this office to act on your behalf in the above
matter and I thank you in this regard.
We understand that {FINANCE.COMPANY~} may be providing some of your
purchase monies. In due course we will need to contact this lending
institution and make the necessary arrangements for its involvement in
the settlement.

When the standard letter is processed for a client of theirs, the
resolving program finds these codes, calls the relevant subroutine to
get/calculate the value for that client & replaces the {code} with the
value.
The software also allows the user to include/exclude a paragraph,
sentence or section of text based on the result of the {code} - by
adding ~, ! or ` after the code (as in FINANCE.COMPANY~) - if the
value returned is null, the relevant paragraph etc is not included in
the resolved letter. This works both in normal text and in tables
(sentence is a cell, paragraph is a row).

The standard letters are stored in D3, HostAccess transfers from D3 to
Word & opens the doc in Word, the client further modifies it as
required & then it gets transferred back & stored in D3.

Any advice/help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Geoff

What about turning it into a pdf before sending it back to d3?

<goodchild_g (AT) yahoo (DOT) com.au> wrote

Do you want to send your RTF letter as an email attachment, or will the
letter itself be the body of the message?

If it's the latter, you can use the same technique with HTML that it
sounds like you're doing with RTF. Just create an HTML email template
using any email client with your {..} tokens, save it, and the run it
through your software to substitute the actual text when you generate
the actual email messages. Graphical images like letterhead are easy
to add to HTML.

David Ousele

David,
The document has to be an attachment - the documents can be quite large
and complex. I haven't looked at HTML very much; I seem to recall
someone saying that it doesn't handle tables very well.
I'll have a look at converting the docs to PDF & then adding the
letterhead

Thanks,

Geoff