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Below is Feedback we received during December. If you have some comments
you'd like to share, you can do so by clicking the Feedback menu
item above. You will be given the option to have your name published, or
not.
Feedback
A reader from Atlanta, GA writes...
Saw it for the first time and like it. Found some usefull information.
How can I subscibe it?
Thanks.
Reply
Dian
Chapman, TechTrax Editor writes...
Thanks for your feedback. It made me realize that we could make
it even easier for folks to see how to subscribe to TechTrax. We
did have the details and link to the main subscription page in the
TechTrax About page at the above link. But now we've moved things
around and added a specific button on the above menu for
subscriptions. There you will find all the details.
But to make it easy for you now...just go to this main page on MouseTrax
(the mothership for TechTrax) and you'll find all the subscription details
here.
http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Just pick the way you want to be notified...via simple text email, with
an HTML Briefing or receive a Word doc without pictures. Then enter
your email address and submit. You'll receive a confirmation email...just
click the link in that email to confirm that you are who you say
you are and that you really do want to subscribe. This helps us avoid
bogus email should someone attempt to sign up another person without
their knowledge.
In fact, I recently had a person subscribe and then when we sent him
the notice, he emailed me back very upset calling me a spammer!<sigh>
Thankfully, I not only had his confirmation, but a note he'd added
to the subscription details. After forwarding him his own comments
and confirmation, he apologized saying he'd forgotten that he did subscribe!
Feedback
Sharon Roffey from Geneva, Switzerland writes...
Comments on Jonathan West's "Creating Custom Toolbars for Templates" ...
Only
one word fits the bill ... "superb". Here I am battling away
with Templates and associated toolbars and along comes salvation! Not only
did the article clarify existing concerns but gave me additional ideas. As
an added bonus, it's written in a very "reader friendly" way. Love
it!
So, Jonathan, if there are any tips (more specifically problems to look
out for ...) you have for assigning macros to a template toolbar that would
be a winner. Also, I want to make a number of graphics available on the template
toolbar (maybe a drop down list?) that users can pick from and insert into
the document. I'm going away from the praise stage now and into the help
one. Oops ... but maybe it provokes thought for future articles?
THANK YOU again for the article.
P.S. I'm a brand new subscriber to TechTrax ... what a good start :-)
Reply
Jonathan
West, author of
Creating
Custom Toolbars for Templates, writes...
Hi Sharon
Thanks for your kind words. It's always great to know that an article
has helped somebody with a real problem.
As for assigning macros to a toolbar, there are three things I can think
of regarding toolbars and macros.
- You should store the toolbar in the same template where the macros
are stored, so you can be sure the macro is actually available when the
toolbar is visible.
- You mustn't change the name of the macro, or even of the module in
the template, after you create the toolbar. The button will stop working
because the name of the macro has changed.
- You must be aware of security issues - Word will refuse to run a macro
if it doesn't pass its security conditions. Distributing macros and templates
and the security issues involved is something I'm definitely planning
a full article on soon.
As for buttons to insert graphics, I can do a full article on this in
due course, but one simple possibility is to store each graphic in an
AutoText entry in the template. You can select AutoText entries in the
Customize dialog just as you can select macros and styles.
I can see that toolbars and customizing is definitely an area which could
use further articles!
Regards
Jonathan
Feedback
A reader writes...
hi-
i have an ibm pentium 3 with a 700mhz amd duron processor. its the minimum
i know needed for video work of any kind. authoring dvds requires vob files.
is there a way to directly convert avi files to vob without encoding to mpeg2
and then through dvd author to vob? i'm looking into a new computer for the
new year-this one is about 3 years. but a lot of videos online are avi files
and this would save a lot of processing time.
thanks
Reply
Greg
Chapman, author of
At
Last!! Fast, Easy and Reliable DVD Authoring for the PC!, writes...
I don't know of any tools which will take you past the MPG step since the
VOB stream is essentially an MPG stream, but laid out in a lower layer
file system to comply with the DVD standard. I understand your desire
to reduce the amount of time involved in encoding/converting AVI to MPG
and the best solution I've found is also a product of the folks at Pegasys.
Take a look at TMPGEnc Plus 2.5 (http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tp.html).
It's *VERY* clean and fast so you shouldn't experience nearly the same
level of frustration you're currently fighting on your old system.
Greg Chapman
http://www.mousetrax.com
"Counting in binary is as easy as 01, 10, 11!
With thinking this clear, is coding really a good idea?
Feedback
A reader writes...
Hi,
I have two questions about controlling the printer in Word VBA.
How can I program WordVBA to print 2 or more pages on 1 page (NUP in
DEVMODE ??) and how can I use the staple function (STAPLE in DEVMODE ??).
I tried to make a function like GetDuplex and SetDuplex, but it doesn't
work.
I have two printer/copiers: HP Laserjet 2200 and Xerox 265ST
Thanks,
Reply
Jonathan
West, author of
Controlling
the Printer from Word VBA
writes...
For n-up printing controlled from VBA, if you are using Word 2000 or later,
there are paramaters of the PrintOut method you can use. The PrintZoomRows
and PrintZoomColumns parameters between them set the number of pages printed,
so for instance setting both to 2 will print 4 pages to a page. You may
also need to explicitly set the PrintZoomPaperWidth and PrintZoomPaperHeight
properties to the paper size you are printing on.
(These last 2 properties are expressed in twips, i.e. 1/20ths of
a point.)
Unfortunately I have no access to a printer that does stapling, and so
no means of tryiong out a coded stapling function. I suggest you contact
HP and Xerox to see if they have any answers on this
Happy new year!
Jonathan
Feedback
Nigel Bell from the UK writes...
Hi Jonathon
Firstly, thanks for a very informative series of articles on
controlling printers!
I'm building an application in Access that automates
Word for a complex mail merge and need to use different paper bins for
output. I've pasted your functions GetBinNames and GetBinNumbers into
a standard module in Access 2002 and called them from the Immediate window
to test they work by typing out
?GetBinNames(1)
Yesterday this seemed to work fine but today when I try
it out I'm getting a Run time 429 ActiveX cannot create object (which
I think probably has something to do with an unqualified reference) on
the line:
sPort = Trim$(Mid$(ActivePrinter, InStrRev(ActivePrinter, " ") + 1))
I'd really appreciate it if you could point
me in the right direction to solve this issue as it's a great feature
that I'd like to include in my application build
Many thanks
Nigel Bell, UK
Reply
Jonathan
West, author of Controlling
the Printer from Word VBA writes...
Hi Nigel,
It is probably the reference to ActivePrinter which is the
problem. ActivePrinter is a property of type String in the Word object
model which sets or returns the name & port of the current printer.
It is not part of the Access object model.
If you had set a reference to
the Microsoft Word object model before (using Tools References in
the VBA editor), the code wold find ActivePrinter there and would work.
I suspect that the second time round, you haven't set that reference, and
you are controlling Word using late binding instead.
That specific line
of code is designed to pick up the name of the port the printer is
connected to, e.g. LPT1: or \\Printserver\ Printer1
. The Access 2002 object model is different, there is a Printers
collection and individual Printer objects, and the Printer object
has a Port property which you can use to get the name of the port.
If you replace that line with the following, it should work without a problem,
and not rely on the reference to Word
sPort = Application.Printer.Port
I'm
also rather amused (and annoyed at Microsoft!) by the fact that Access
2002 gained a full set of printer objects, while even in Office 2003,
Word is still lacking them even though it is a word-processor designed
to print things to printers!
Regards
Jonathan
Further Reply
Nigel writes...
Many thanks Jonathon - it's all so straightforward once you know how!
Kind regards
Nigel
Feedback
A reader writes...
Thanks for your macro to turn off the reviewing toolbar automatically. This
was the most annoying feature of Office that I couldn't turn off. At last
- success!
Reply
Beth
Melton, author of
Review
Toolbar Annoyance writes...
Glad to hear another Word user has one less annoyance. :-) If you want
to know why the Reviewing toolbar automatically surfaces then check out " Do
you want to Merge Changes ?" for the full details.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton Microsoft Office MVP
Feedback
A reader writes...
Re: Paste Special Unformatted Text At Your Fingertips
Herb, I want to compliment you on the above article. Fantastic!
Reply
Herb
Tyson, author of
Paste
Special Unformatted Text At Your Fingertips writes...
I'm constantly re-amazed at how much a simple tool can ease the tedium
of computing--even the built-in stuff. Consider the lofty F4 (Redo) command,
for example. It saves so much work in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Too bad
it doesn't work in my kitchen.
Cheers,
Herb Tyson
http://www.herbtyson.com
Feedback
Luuk Post from Bergschenhoek, The Netherlands, writes...
Thank you, very very very very much!!!!!!
Thanks for helping me with the normal.dot explanation and solutions on your
site!!!
That's what the internet is made for!!
Luuk
(from the Netherlands)
Reply
Dian
Chapman, author of Normal.dot
Template - Explained, writes...
Thanks so much for your terrific feedback, Luuk. I'm glad it helped you
sort out any confusion you might have had about how it all works. And yes,
we're all in this together...so helping others is what we enjoy.
Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant,
Microsoft MVP & Instructor
Feedback
A reader writes...
In the article by dennis roche, it says to download and extract the service
pack.
After downloading the service pack, extract it to the Win2k_SP4 directory.
Again, this is my naming convention and you can use whatever you like to
make it easier. So now you should see an i386 directory created within the
Win2k_SP4 directory
I have downloaded the file 2 times and extracted it to the winxp_sp1 directory
that I created since I am trying to do this with xp and I never do get a
i386 directory within, as the article says I should. I would appreiate any
comment or idea as to why it is not working for me.
Thank you, and keep up the good work I look forward to receiving your newsletters
Reply
Dennis
Roche, author of
Automating
the Installation of Windows 2000/XP, writes...
In short, the problem is that the Windows XP SP1 package downloaded from
Microsoft doesnt extract to an i386 directory. Instead it extracts the
i386 directory. So what you have to do is specify when unzipping the
file to extract to an i386 directory you create. Hope that helps!
Dr
Feedback
John Marshall, MVP writes...
Dian, I thought you'd be interested to see that there's another type of
USB drive: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/5eec/
Reply
Dian
Chapman, author of
The
Perfect Tech (Geek) Gift, writes...
Holy @#$%!...how cool. I want one!<eg>
Feedback
John Driscoll from Sonoma, CA, writes...
RE: The perfect tech (geek) gift. This thing sounds great, but how do you
get stuff into it?
Reply
Dian
Chapman, author of The
Perfect Tech (Geek) Gift, writes...
Hi John...It's actually quite simple. Once the USB drive is plugged into
your computer, it appears on your Windows Explorer just the same
as if you had a separate hard drive on your computer. So you just
have to go to the files you want to copy, select them and then you
can either choose copy from the menu, hit Ctrl + C to copy the file
or just drag them over to the other drive designation. If you
drag them, they'll appear within your new drive. If you use the menu
or Ctrl + C, then when you move to your USB drive listing in the
folder list, you'll have to select it and hit Ctrl + V to paste in
the files.
Once you've copied the files to the USB drive, just as you would do if
you were copying files from one folder or drive to another, you simply
remove the drive from your computer connection and the files are
inside the little drive so you can easily carry them with you. Just
like having a very powerful floppy disk!
Hope that helps...
Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant,
Microsoft MVP & Instructor
Feedback
Barbara writes...
"click here and type your name" How do I add this to a template?
I am trying to create a form that can be used for information entry ie. Name
of
Event _______________ Date of Event ________. I see that other
templates have used fields with Macrobutton NoMacrobutton ect. ect. There
must be a reference guide for a simple user form.
Thanks, Barbara
Reply
Dian
Chapman, author of Creating
Test Forms in Word, and several other
Forms articles/courses, writes...
Hi Barbara...
Yeah, you'd THINK there's be a manual, eh? But after years of having to
fuss to find out this info and learn it myself...I did write some instructions
for others. So I'd suggest you go to my web site at www.mousetrax.com/techpage.html#autoforms.
There you'll find a list of articles I've written over the years on doing
forms, like what you want to do.
The best place to start is to find the series "Please fill out this
form" and start reading Lesson 1. Lesson 5 might be too much info
for what you need...but it'll show you how to link a form to a database
so you can gather info in a Word form and pass it to an Access database
with a click...no manual data entry required!
However, Lessons 1-4 will give you a solid understanding of what you can
do with the basics. Then the other articles you'll find there...will enhance
your knowledge.
Now if you REALLY want to learn what you can do...I also have written
a course on forms...and how to even automate them, like creating
an invoice form that does all the calculations for you and all that fun
stuff. You can purchase this course for $25 for the eBook reading version
or $59.95 for the video, enhanced version...with lots more info. Or just
stick with all the free info through the links above. It depends on how
much you want to learn and what you want to do with the forms. If you just
want to create a simple form...the free stuff will be all you need. If
you wanna get really good at it...the courses would be better, later, when
you're ready.
Hope this helps. Good luck. And when if/when you do get rolling with them...if
you start working on automating them...know that I also run a free support
group to help users solve issues creating more elaborate forms. You can
find out more info on that...here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Word_VBA/
Have fun!
Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant,
Microsoft MVP & Instructor
Feedback
Daniel from Amsterdam, writes...
Hello David, I read your article "Dynamic UserForms", quite fascinating.
I have a question though: is it possible to add code to a button created
dynamically? If yes, how can this be done?
Thank you, Daniel
Reply
David
Horowitz, author of
Dynamic
UserForms, writes...
Hi Daniel,
Again, glad to hear from you. Yes, sure you can do what you
want. I've attached a sample document that does just that. If
you have any questions, please ask. I'm curious if you would tell me a
little about your situation and why you need to do this.
Thanks!
Dave
David
Horowitz
Soundside Inc.
david@SoundsideSoftware.com
Further Reply
Daniel writes...
Hello Dave,
Thank you very much for your time and energy into explaining me this. I certainly
appreciate it. I'm a Word/Web developer (amid other functions at the company)
and I'm currently working on a toolbar that needs to be updated according to
the needs of the user. As soon as I have a running version I'll send it to you
if you like.
I've checked your example and it's a real programming candy. I have two new questions
though: the first one is: do you must always define the buttons that you are
going to create? In other words, which is the difference between this and making
the button.visible=true/false? This leads to the next question: is it possible
to create the code dynamically? Let's say that the user wants to define a new
style in a template: the tool could help him/her in creating the new button for
the new style in the Custom Styles Toolbar (i.e.), so it would be ideal to write
the code permanently into the project. And the third question: is it possible
to add the new button permanently into the form?
I've been experimenting with the following code that I found in the Office XP
Developer's kit:
Set vbe = Application.vbe
Set newImages(i) = vbe.Windows.vbe.VBProjects.Item(1).VBComponents.Item(8).Designer.Controls.Add("Forms.Image.1",
nombre, True)
With this, you can add permanently the new control into the user form. You can
even place the second line inside a For...Next and have several of them. The
big disadvantage/difficulty that I've found is to find the right index value
in the .item object. So, i.e., if I have another template or document open, Item(index)
will be index=2 and not 1, and this renders the code useless :-( A workaround
would be to close all the templates, documents, etc. before running the code,
but there must be a better solution for running the code... maybe a For...each?
and get the right index value?
I haven't gone as far as to write code dynamically inside each new object. It
seems to be possible though, but I haven't find the way yet. Do you have any
clues about it?
Again, thank you indeed for your e-mail, time, energy and code,
Daniel
Further Reply
David writes...
Hi Daniel,
Good to hear from you.
Regarding what's the difference between the code I sent you and just making the
button visible or not: the difference is if you just make the control visible
or not visible, then the control is on the form at design time. So you can set
up all the properties using the VBE designer. But it doesn't let you respond
to runtime conditions by creating different controls.
Now for your next question, about adding controls and code using the Application
VBE.VBProjects object, which permanently adds the items to the template, that's
certainly an interesting thing to do and will be the best thing in certain circumstances.
You can indeed add code this way.
Finding the correct project index can be done like this... If you know the name
of the project, you can use that as the .Item index, for example:
set proj = Application.VBE.VBProjects("prjMyProject")
You may also use Application.VBE.ActiveVBProject. This is probably what you want?
You can also refer to the VBProject.Name and VBProject.FileName properties.
By the way, do you feel it's necessary to refer to Application.VBE.Windows.VBE,
instead of just Application.VBE?
Here's a routine that will add a new Sub to a project with a random name like
NewProc70 or NewProc53:
Sub AddNewSub()
Dim i as Integer
Dim s as String
Dim procName as String
i = Int(Rnd * 100)
procName = "NewProc" & i
s = vbCrLf & "Sub " & procName & vbCrLf & vbTab & "MsgBox ""Hello!
This is proc " & _ procName & "!""" & vbCrLf & "End
Sub"
Call Application.VBE.ActiveVBProject.VBComponents("myCodeModule").
_
CodeModule.AddFromString(s)
MsgBox "Added proc " & procName & "!"
End Sub
Check out the methods for the CodeModule object... Very interesting. You can
add code using AddFromString or InsertLines, you can delete code, you can find
out what line number certain subs start at, very powerful.
Does this answer your questions? If you have more, please let me know.
Dave
David Horowitz
Soundside Inc.
david@SoundsideSoftware.com
Further Reply
Daniel writes...
Hello Dave,
Fascinating your e-mail. I'll start experimenting with it asap.
I'll be practising with the code you sent me and let you know my progress with
it. One little thing though: I did try using the project name instead of the
index value, but it didn't work. Maybe with your hint of using ActiveVBProject
that wouldn't be necessary. I'm all excited to start working into it!
Thank you again Dave,
Daniel
Further Reply
David writes...
Daniel,
Good luck, and please keep me posted on your progress!
Regarding using the project name, hmmm! Did you use quotes around the name? And
did you make sure to use the correct name? You can test the name by using:
Debug.Print Application.VBE.VBProjects.Item(index).Name
Whatever name it displays would be the name you'd use instead of the index number.
Dave
David Horowitz
Soundside Inc.
david@SoundsideSoftware.com
Feedback
Joy Kingston from Australia, writes...
Hi Linda,
I followed it step by step and it still doesn't work. It
comes up with the discription as follows:
FrontPage Run-Time Component Page
You have submitted a form or followed a link to a page that requires
a web server and the FrontPage Server Extensions to function properly.
This form or other FrontPage component will work correctly if you publish
this web to a web server that has the FrontPage Server Extensions installed.
Click the <Back> arrow to return to the previous page. Any suggestions,
your help would be very, very much appreciated
Thanks
JOY
Reply
Linda
Johnson, author of
Creating
Feedback Forms for Your Website Using FrontPage, writes...
Hi Joy.
It sounds like your Frontpage extensions are corrupt. Contact your web
host and tell them to reinstall the extensions. That *should* fix
this problem.
Good luck.
Linda F. Johnson, M.A., MOS
Linda's Computer Stop
http://personal-computer-tutor.com
Feedback
Phillippe from Australia writes...
Re Toolbar Button Icons
Comments: I have read Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 191178 "HOW
TO: ". I am interested something similar not covered by that article.
In the article, there is a section entitled "How to Change the
Image of an Existing Button." You can change the button image
by selecting a different image from a pool of images. Alternatively,
you can change the image by editing the bitmapped image.
I am no artist. I don't like the pool of images. I have many icon
files that I would like to add to the pool to use instead.
Can they be added to the pool? How?
What about clip art? Bmp files?
Many thanks in anticipation.
Reply
Dian
Chapman, author of Adding
Images to Your Style Toolbar, writes...
Hey Philippe...
Funny you should ask...I JUST wrote an article on that for TechTrax. You
can get to this months issue through this main URL: www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Once you arrive inside the December (current) issue...look along the left
menu of monthly articles and note the one entitled:
Adding Images to Your Style Toolbar
Or you can get there directly through this link:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=273
And here's an older one I write that's on my main MouseTrax site:
Customized Toolbars and Menus
http://www.mousetrax.com/toolbars.html
Both articles explain how to do it...they just each provide a slightly
different perspective on WHY you might want to do this.
Have fun!
Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant,
Microsoft MVP & Instructor
Further Reply
Phillippe writes...
Thank you very much Dian.
If only Microsoft provided such timely, accurate help I am sure they
would sell more software.
Further Reply
Dian writes...
You're very welcomed.
But don't be quite so quick to put MS down, Philippe. Remember...I'm
a Microsoft MVP...so one of the reasons I have so much information
available is because Microsoft supplies it to ME, so I can
supply it to users. We
*help* them provide support to users and if it wasn't for
Microsoft providing help to me as an MVP, I wouldn't be able
to do all that I can for users!
Microsoft has one of the BIGGEST FREE support processes available
of any software company. They put out a lot of bucks to keep
their MVPs up on support issues and they're there for us
to get the answers we need...so we can provide that help to you.
And you can easily get all the free help you need through the Microsoft
free support newsgroups (supported by the MVPs at http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups),
as well as through many MVP support sites, like mine. See
this page for all our sites: http://www.mvps.org/links.html
So realize that Microsoft DOES put out tons of great support...free.
And much of it comes to you through the support of their 1200 MVPs!<wink>
Dian ~
Further Reply
Phillippe writes...
Thanks Dian.
I have actually paid Microsoft here in Australia for technical
advice in my business, and found that their help was slow and
very limited. No mention was made of MVPs. I hired another
IT person who solved the problems for me.
Your help was outstanding.
I am surprised there isn't a hyperlink in MS Help menus taking
you to the MVP websites you mentioned. They are very
useful and have opened up a whole new world to me. The only
hyperlinks seem to go to the Knowledge Base which, whilst
good, is clearly only one of a number of online resources.
Once again, thank you very much.
Regards
Philippe
Feedback
A reader/subscriber writes...
RE: Action Required! Confirm your TechTrax Subscription
This is an odd request.
Why can't you just add me to the list??
Reply
Dian
Chapman, Editor/TechTrax, writes...
Hi...
Actually, it's not really a very odd request. If you subscribed to other
support lists, I'm sure you'd see this type of activation request.
In fact, this month, web developer Adrian
Forbes provides details
regarding how to allow users to activate
various accounts through email.
Sadly, due to all the spam and other junk mail flowing about, those of
us who prefer to keep accurate mailing lists of our requested subscribers...without
being accused of being a spammer ourselves!...need to take steps
to make sure that your email address wasn't submitted by someone
who just wanted to load up your inbox with additional mail. Or maybe
it wasn't so vengeful, but rather a well meaning friend who just
added your address thinking you'd appreciate the information. However,
if you're unaware of this fact, you might come back to me, as some
folks actually do!, claiming that I'm spamming them by sending
them our little monthly reminder.
TechTrax now sends out over 4,000 notifications each month to make sure
our subscribers know that the new issue is available for them to
read. In an effort to keep our mailing list accurate, we've move
on to the ways of large publications whereby we accept your request
for a subscription notice, but simply ask you to take one step to
verify that your email address is legit.
Plus, many spammers out there foolishly use our subscription address in
their junk mailings. So we occasionally get email at that address
from a bogus spam address. Rather than wasting our own address storage
space on non-existent address, we request a confirmation. Since auto
mailing spammers will not bother to manually reply to our URL click
request, we can later go in and remove those addresses that have
never been confirmed.
If you don't take the time to activate your request for a subscription
with TechTrax, your email address will eventually be removed from
our database.
Feedback
Frances Stewart writes...
Linda - your article in TechTrax was great!
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=261
Well done - I've forward it to more than a few people!
Reply
Linda
Johnson, author of
I
Cannot FIND That!, writes...
Thanks, Fran! Glad you found it useful enough to share.
Further Reply
Frances writes...
No problem. I even have your other article linked: http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v25/linda25.htm.
In that article I found other brilliant research suggestions.
In fact, Linda - I think you should be considering an ebook on Research
for Professionals.
Further Reply
Linda writes...
Hmmm. An ebook on Research for Professionals sounds like a great idea.
Feedback
Jan Kolacz from Australia, writes...
I have just read the November, 2003 Issue of TechTrax.
Your website is awesome!
Reply
Dian
Chapman, TechTrax Editor writes...
Thanks for the terrific comments, Jan!
Dian ~
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