Feedback

Great to know our new Feedback menu option is encouraging folks take advantage of this easy access route to our writers to verify details of their articles and to pass along much appreciated Thank yous. Below you'll find details from the feedback comments we received here at TechTrax during January. Names have been withheld for those folks requesting the option not to have their name published.

If you ever want to pass along thanks for articles that have been particularly helpful to you or have questions or comments about any of our articles, feel free to click the Feedback menu option in all issues of TechTrax (including the converted Word document version) and let us know what's on your mind. The form gives you the option of allowing your name to be published or not. Note that reader's email addresses are never published!

Feedback
Simon van Groningen from Netherlands asked:

"I did everything you said about making Google the search machine of my browser (IE 6), but I did not succeed. Have you any other suggestion."

Reply
The question was passed to the original author, Vic Ferri, who came back with this great info to update the article:

Solution!
It does work with XP and IE6. You need to set the Use Search Assistant value in the registry to NO.

Go to registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

In the right hand pane, look for this value: Use Search Assistant and change the value to no.

Just tested it with XP Pro and IE6 and worked perfectly. Be sure to close and reopen IE before thinking it doesn't work. You may have to close-reopen IE a few times to make it catch.

Feedback
Dawn Crosier from Wichita asked:

"Love the article on TOC spanning multiple documents [by Jonathan West]! I will be sending some of my key secretaries to this article for them to read up on how to work with their Tables of Contents.

"I know that the VBA will "BLOW THEIR MINDS" so perhaps I could get permission to publish without that information???

"Thank you for all your great information!"

Reply
"Thanks for the great feedback, Dawn, but, unfortunately, although we do provide permissions to reprint articles for non-profit support use, reprints must be complete originals, with all original information included and proper author credits and TechTrax copyright details included. Sorry we can't allow the article to be modified, Dawn. But you can always link to the full article or reprint the full article with proper credits. Thanks much for properly asking for reprint permission."

Feedback
Another reader wrote:

"This is a great site, I have just learnt about it and I have spent most of my day working on how to create a macro button to automatically create and print an envelope. I have a problem though, each time I run my macro, I am getting an error to say that the document is not open. If I open the original .dot and then run the macro it works fine, do you know the reason this may be happening, I have not had any experience with VBE, so this is my first attempt."

Reply
Author, Dian Chapman, replied:

"Very sorry for the confusion. I made a mistake and didn't catch this code error. The code should have said ActiveDocument, rather than ThisDocument. The article code has now been corrected. Thanks for questionning this problem and bringing it to our attention."

Further Feedback from Reader
"Thanx for this, it worked a treat! The reason I created it is, my grandma lives in another city and she is elderly. I like to write to her because she gets a real kick out of getting letters. So I try to make it easy for her by printing onto nice stationary so it is easy for her to read. The stationary measurements had to be customized, so this now saves me from having to change things every time I write to her, which is about once a week!"

Feedback
Another reader wrote:

"Thank you so much for the article on Organizing Outlook Mail [by Dian Chapman], incredibly helpful and clear!!! One question: I have created pst files and am using them to organize e-mails prior to moving to new PC. I deleted two of the pst files I created, prior to closing them on the Folders List. I am now unable to delete them from Folders list, because file is no longer there. Even on restore from Recycle Bin, I am unable to delete. Any way to delete from folders list at this point?? This is win 98 PC."

Reply
We asked for help in the MVP community and two Outlook MVPs came to the rescue with these replies:

• One Outlook MVP said:
  Two ways to fix it:

1. Hack the registry and delete the unwanted PST references
2. Create a fresh mail profile.

• Milly Staples, Outlook MVP said:
  If it is Outlook 2002, just open the mail icon in control panel, select Outlook Data Files. Remove the ones that she does not need.

And then our own TechTrax Featured Writer, Herb Tyson, author of the book Teach Yourself Microsoft Outlook 2000 in 24 Hours, provided us with this great info:

In Outlook 2002, as an experiment, I did the following:

1. Used File—Import/Export to create a pst called test-delete.pst.

2. Used File—Open to open that .pst file.

3. Without closing the new .pst file from within Outlook, I closed Outlook. (Before closing, I tried to delete the .pst file with Outlook still open,
knowing what would happen, and it said it couldn't because the file was locked/in use.)

4. Using Windows Explorer, deleted the test-delete.pst file.

5. Opened Outlook, which then griped about the missing file. It gave me an opportunity to browse & find it; I clicked Cancel.

6. Outlook now opens, still showing the now-inaccessible (because it's gone) .pst in the folder list.

7. I right-click on the now-dead folder, and choose Close. Outlook obliges without further ado, and all traces of that .pst are now gone.

If the .pst file you're zapping is the default .pst, you can get into additional problems, but I've always been able to get around them by
renaming any .pst files Outlook is "aware of" and then—once all but the default has been properly closed—simply starting Outlook and pointing it at the one I want to be the default. This has worked at least since Outlook 2000, and possibly works in 98, as well.

Further Feedback from Reader
The reader reported back that this additional information helped and she was able to get things working properly again!

Feedback
Another reader wrote:

"Controlling the Printer from Word VBA, by Jonathan West

"Part 2: Using VBA to control Duplex, Color Mode and Print Quality

"This looks great! I tried it TO CHANGE DUPLEX, and it did not work. This article gives no clue if it is talking about a local printer or a network printer. I was trying on a network printer."

Reply
We checked with author, Jonathan West and he replied:

"Yes, there can be a problem with network printers. I've addressed in the Part 3 article. Basically, you have to install a local driver that points to the network printer. I've had an extensive exchange of emails with the author of this feedback, and it seems that he has a damaged installation of Word 97. He got the code to work on a different computer. I'm waiting for him to get back to me with a report on whether a reinstall fixed things."

Feedback
Rohn Solecki from Winnipeg MB Canada wrote:

"Re: Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents: I have used a 5th option (for TOC only), although I suspect the RD option is better.

"Create the 'master TOC' (not M$ 'MASTER DOC') file (as was mentioned in RD option) Create the TOC in each file Edit / Copy the TOC in each file Edit / Paste Special / Paste Link.

"It is slightly more awkward because you have to update the TOCs in the source doc before updating the 'Master TOC' doc."

Reply
We checked with author Jonathan West about this feedback and he replied:

"If I understand him correctly, his option will only work if he is willing to have the TOC for each chapter displayed within each chapter file. Some documents do work that way, but it is not an option if the only TOC you want is the consolidated one at the very start."

Feedback
Ria Oskam from Amersfoort/The Netherlands wrote:

"In the article of controlling the printer from VBA is one line that should be changed if you want to use it in a network environment:

pd.DesiredAccess = PRINTER_NORMAL_ACCESS

"should be:

pd.DesiredAccess = PRINTER_ACCESS_USE

"If you use the first line no duplexing will be set. Hope this improves your article"

Reply
We passed the info back to author, Jonathan West, who replied:

"The permissions needed seem to vary depending on the network setup. I've only been able to test the code on a limited range of networks and printers. Thanks for the feedback, I'll be keeping it in mind for my own use in future. (That's one thing I like about the Internet, there's always something more you can learn!)"

Feedback
Another reader from US Department of Defense, Lowell, MA wrote:

"Re: Converting Email to Clean Text Files

"I came across this great tool while looking for a solution to converting a large amount of Outlook emails to a text format. It works great!! I do not know much about windows scripting, but this has made me want to learn more. I have made one change to your script and that was to change how you appended the original file name with "nohtml.txt" I just appended the original file extension with txt (eg myemail.msgtxt) This allowed me to write a simple batch file to delete the original outlook message and rename the output with a simple txt file extension. I intend to distribute this on our intranet (with credit to you at mousetrax) so that others within our organization can use it. Thank You."

Reply
From Greg Chapman, creator of the WSHScript HTML Cleanup utility, replied:

"Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad it has worked out for you. As far as I'm concerned, there's no problem with housing this on your intranet at all. The reference to MouseTrax is both wise and appreciated! There is no licensing issue as code like this is usually generated by us with an eye toward helping people educate themselves so that they, too, can use their imaginations to solve computer problems. Looks like you're already heading down that road so we've accomplished our end goal."