Word Automation Follow-up: compatibility, templates

jversusj

I have found a lot of help here on how to create my Word Automation project so i am not going to ask those questions again. Instead, i'll ask some other questions

Nav 3.7B with 5.0 executables.

My intent is to mailmerge a letter regarding short-paid invoices (Dear Sir, we couldn't help but notice you neglected to pay your Freight on Invoice 123...). Do i need to store the template word document in NAV, or can i access it on the Network? Which is the best practice because i'm fairly sure I could do either.

I have Office 2007 on my Development PC. How do i define the Automation Server to be backwards compatible (some users still have Office XP, many have Office 2003)? When I attempt to add an automation server, it only shows those that are installed on my machine (Office 12). Further, when i view Codeunit 5054 variables, I see "Unknown Automation Server," probably because it is pointing to an older version of Word. If I create my automation using Word 12, will users with older versions be out of luck at run time?

garak

It's possible, that Users with a newer version can use your customized application. Sometimes users with an older version not (on some functions Microsoft make a change or delete it and create a new one).

For the Mail Merge this is also no problem. You can use a template on a server (use UNC Path tho connect <- search the forum) or you store the template in a Blob and extract it before using mail merge.

If you have installed different Office Versions, you can get in your code the version. So it's possible to design your code so, that it work with you installed custom version.
But why some users in your firm has office XP, Office 2003, Office 2007, maybe Office 97 ? These are high license costs. Why not one version?

Regards

jversusj

garak wrote:

It's possible, that Users with a newer version can use your customized application. Sometimes users with an older version not (on some functions Microsoft make a change or delete it and create a new one).

For the Mail Merge this is also no problem. You can use a template on a server (use UNC Path tho connect <- search the forum) or you store the template in a Blob and extract it before using mail merge.

If you have installed different Office Versions, you can get in your code the version. So it's possible to design your code so, that it work with you installed custom version.
But why some users in your firm has office XP, Office 2003, Office 2007, maybe Office 97 ? These are high license costs. Why not one version?

Regards

thanks.

i found a nice tuturial in the NAV applications designer guide, do not know why i didn't check there first. :oops:

as for your question, the IT strategy here has been to replace machines on 3 - 5 year cycles, and they ordered Office on the machines as they came in, so some machines still have older version until they get cycled out, or if we change strategy and go to thin clients with terminal services or something. Not my decision. we do have a terminal server for remotely users, so i connected to that and found it was using Office 11, so i wrote my code/object on that machine. I then ran it from my local machine (off12) and it worked fine. i figure since i am only going to be doing basic merge functionality, the version probaby won't be an issue.

follow-up question from me:
the tutorial had me create a CU, but couldn't i also use a processing only report, and on the options tab provide a lookup to valid template files? as the tutorial pointed out, i don't want to hardcode a template in the C/AL. i am also trying to be conservative in my use of objects.