Graham Mayor
... helping to ease the lives of Microsoft Word users.
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Many people access the material from this web site daily. Most just take what they want and run. That's OK, provided they are not selling on the material as their own; however if your productivity gains from the material you have used, a donation from the money you have saved would help to ensure the continued availability of this resource. Click the appropriate button above to access PayPal.
What's New
Thursday 5th December 2024
Fixed typo in code listing on the automatic document numbering page which had rendered the code unusable.
Friday 15th November 2024
Added a note to the Many to One download page, regarding a potential security related issue when installing the Many to One add-in, though it is fair to add that this issue could affect any Word add-in templates downloaded from this site or elsewhere.
Saturday 26th October 2024
Further updates to the Open Documents from List add-in, to provide the facilities to backup and restore stored document lists, and to preserve those lists when updating the add-in to this latest version.
Thursday 17th October 2024
Updated the Open Documents from List add-in, to accommodate multiple document lists.
Monday 22nd July 2024
Updated the Insert Address from Outlook add-in for 64 bit compatibility.
Wednesday 31st May 2023
I am currently still in limbo as I relocate from Cyprus to the UK and my office is still on route and my broadband still to be connected having been let down by a well known service provider despite ordering the connection back in April.
Nevertheless I found that there was a problem with the Word version 3.3 of my Select Template add-in that needed to be corrected, so I have now updated the add-in, to ensure 64 bit compatibility and fix the error.
Saturday 25th March 2023
I have not had much time to make changes to my web site recently, as I have been preoccupied with preparations to relocate to the UK and am currently disappearing under a mountain of boxes; however a user reported that my PayPal links on the site were not working. It seems that PayPal have changed the way they work without telling me. Thanks PayPal!
I have fixed the links and also updated the code to extract acronyms to avoid duplications in the report document.
Sunday 15th January 2023
Fixed some minor bugs in the Many To One Mail Merge add-in relating to 64 bit compatibility.
Saturday 24th December 2022
The Many To One Mail Merge add-in is able to merge bar codes, but until now only for child fields in a table. The process has now been modified to also merge bar codes in the body of the document that are not child fields.
Saturday 10th December 2022
A user suggested that the Content Control Toolkit add-in would benefit from an option to turn off the alert sounds, so this has been added. Of more importance, I have added the option to include or remove Editors when using the Edit Content Control tool. Editors are used when creating forms, protected as read only, to dictate which parts of the form - in this case which content controls - are editable.
Thursday 24th November 2022
Major update to the send active document by e-mail add-in to include the option to use a pre-prepared Outlook template as a covering message, plus ensuring compatibility with the 64 bit version of Office.
Wednesday 5th October 2022
Visitors to the site over the past few months will have noticed from my contacts page that I have been away from my office planning a move to the UK. There have been no updates in that period, however a user reported an issue with the photo gallery add-in that affected Office 64 bit versions. Now temporarily back home in Cyprus, I have updated the add-in to address the issue.
Monday 28th March 2022
Updated the Select Document Template add-in to include a few minor enhancements based on my own use of the add-in.
Saturday 26th March 2022
Minor update to the Save in Two Places add-in for Word.
Friday 18th March 2022
A fellow contributor to the VBA Express forum pointed out that my True Title Case macro would not capitalise the first word of a processed text string if that word was one of the exceptions. That issue has now been addressed.
Sunday 13th March 2022
Fixed a bug in the Document Batch Processes add-in.
Sunday 6th March 2022
Created a new Multiple Document Merge add-in for Microsoft Word to facilitate the merging of a group of documents with a common Excel worksheet data source.
Tuesday 22nd February 2022
Minor updates to the PhotoGallery add-in to allow greater flexibility in the use of caption prefixes, and the Content Control Toolkit Add-in to improve the option selection when working with changes to all content controls.
Thursday 10th February 2022
It has been recently reported that the function to mail merge hyperlinks using variable merged graphics in my Merge Hyperlink's add-in no longer works. I have therefore suspended the option to do so, until I can establish what Microsoft has changed, that no longer makes it viable, and produce a workaround, if that is possible.
Friday 4th February 2022
Added a function to convert DocVariable fields to content controls to the Insert Content Controls add-in.
Friday 26th November 2021
I have made some further improvements to the e-mail add-in. Now version 3.1
Sunday 21st November 2021
I have increased the number or personalisation fields for the e-mail add-in from 1 to 6. The rest of the add-in remains unchanged.
Friday 19th November 2021
Sadly there was a coding error in the version of the e-mail add-in I posted yesterday which omitted the covering message for mail merge to e-mail as attachment. Now fixed.
Thursday 18th November 2021
I have been out of circulation for a while after surgery to hopefully correct a worsening chronic medical problem. The results seem promising and I am now slowly taking up the reins again with a modification to my e-mail merge add-in.
The modification was inspired by a Japanese users with an unusual requirement to merge a document as PDF attachments to an e-mail message, with each section of the document as a separate file.
Actually that was not the exact requirement, which was to merge two documents at the same time, but by starting with the two documents combined in separate sections, I was able to achieve the required ends.
Wednesday 15th September 2021
It has been a while since I posted any updates, but today I added a function to the Insert Content Control add-in, to convert merge fields in a 'Letters' merge document to content controls.
Saturday 10th July 2021
Last weekend I posted a new Variable Document Merge add-in. Since then I realised that it had some issues relating to mergefields that employed quotes and also fields that were not merge fields. These I addressed and it occurred to me that it wouldn't be that difficult to add an option to use a single merge document common to all records. This is the essence of a conventional merge split to separate documents or e-mail, but as this process is not a true mail merge application and employs content controls to hold the data I felt it worth including.
Friday 9th July 2021
I have removed the legacy form field capability from the Many to One add-in because it adds to the complexity of the process and content controls work better and impose fewer constraints.
Saturday 3rd July 2021
A few days ago I created the Variable Document Merge add-in and having established the basic concept, I thought it would be a good plan to add a secure PDF option and the ability to send the merged document or PDF via e-mail to an address in the data.
Tuesday 29th June 2021
Fixed a minor issue that affected the merging of protected forms in conjunction with the Many to One add-in
Added example documents and data for use with the Variable Document Merge add-in
Monday 28th June 2021
Based on a problem raised in a Word forum, I created a new Variable Document Merge add-in to allow each record in an Excel worksheet to be merged to a different merge document based on the same excel worksheet.
Thursday 6th May 2021
Fixed a file naming bug in version 18.1 of the Many to One Mail Merge add-in. Fixed in version 18.2
Sunday 2nd May 2021
Updated the Content Control Toolkit to include some enhancements and improved 64 bit compatibility.
Saturday 1st May 2021
Added an enhancement to the Insert Custom Comments add-in dialog
Saturday 24th April 2021
Updated the Bar Coded Labels add-in for improved 64 bit compatibility
Tuesday 20th April 2021
Updated the List Variables, Bookmarks and DocProperties add-in for improved 64 bit compatibility.
Monday 19th April 2021
Updated the Excel/Access Column Values add-in for improved 64 bit compatibility
Sunday 18th April 2021
Updated the Insert Custom Comments add-in for improved 64 bit compatibility.
Wednesday 14th April 2021
Updated the Table of Contents add-in for improved 64 bit compatibility.
uesday 13th April 2021
Tuesday 6th April 2021
Fixed a minor bug in the Open Documents List add-in
Fixed an obscure bug in the Mail Merge Graphics add-in
Monday 5th April 2021
Added the option to save a PDF copy to the 'Save Reminder' add-in.
Sunday 28th March 2021
I have been working on an update for the Many to One Mail Merge add-in to retain the merge options when the same document is merged again. This was implemented in version 17.9, but was incomplete. Hopefully this has now been addressed.
I have also modified the list field option to use a content control to display the list in place of a docvariable field.
Sunday 21st March 2021
Updated the Document Batch Processes add-in to include a new option to find and replace table pairs, with formatted replacements..
Friday 26th February 2021
Minor bug fix for the Many to One Mail Merge add-in to fix an issue when there are no tables in the merge document..
Tuesday 23rd February 2021
While working on the Mail Merge Charts add-in at the weekend, I thought it beneficial to update it to allow the use of content controls in place of bookmarks to place the charts, and did in fact produce such a version, which I did not publish. Subsequently I considered that users may wish to retain their existing merge documents with bookmarks, so I have now produced a version that would handle either bookmarks or content controls to place the charts, but not both in the same document.
Saturday 20th February 2021
Fixed an issue with the Mail Merge Charts add-in
Sunday 7th February 2021
Updated the Many to One add-in to include a process to convert a field to bar code.
Wednesday 3rd February 2021
Fixed an anomaly that occurred with large portrait images when inserted using the Photo Gallery add-in.
Tuesday 2nd February 2021
Updated the Word Document Batch Processes add-in and the Old Document Converter add-in
Sunday 31st January 2021
Updated and improved the Word Envelope Creator add-in.
Saturday 30th January 2021
Updated the Word and Excel versions of the Save Reminder add-in.
Monday 25th January 2021
Updated the Word and Excel versions of the Save in Two Places add-ins.
Sunday 24th January 2021
Updated the Word and Excel versions of the Saved Numbered Versions add-ins.
Sunday 10th January 2021
Fixed some display anomalies with the Merge to E-Mail add-in dialog.
Saturday 9th January 2021
Updated the Mail Merge Graphics add-in for 64 bit compatibiity.
Thursday 7th January 2021
Modified the Many to One add-in to store the last used attachments, which hitherto had not been working correctly.
Wednesday 6th January 2021
A user complained that the main dialog of the Merge and Split add-in would not comfortably fit on the screen. While this was undoubtedly due to a Windows screen resolution issue, I nevertheless modified the add-in to reduce its height, by changing the filename field selector list box for a combo box and included a few code modifications.
Thursday 31st December 2020
To end this thoroughly depressing year, with the hope that things get better for us all in 2021, I have updated my Word Batch Print add-in to include my latest code refinements and to add the ability to choose the required printer from those available.
Friday 25th December 2020
Fixed some issues and added further error handling in the Chart Merge add-in
Thursday 24th December 2020
Fixed a bug in the Excel option of the Insert Documents add-in.
Thursday 12th November 2020
Changed the macro code examples relating to the automatic numbering of documents.
Sunday 8th November 2020
Major update to the e-mail and document merge add-in. A small number of users had complained that the expanded dialogs could not be fully displayed on their monitors. This was undoubtedly due to a display resolution issue, but nevertheless I have modified the add-in to expand horizontally as required and not vertically.
I have added the secure PDF option to the e-mail merge and have included the saving of all merge options (separately for each process) provided the same merge document and data are used subsequently.
Monday 19th October 2020
Updated the Insert Documents (Boiler) add-in to improve 64 bit Office compatibility.
Thursday 15th October 2020
Updated the following add-ins to improve 64 bit Office
compatibility:
Many to One Mail Merge,
Merge and Split,
E-Mail Merge,
Individual Merge
Letters,
Photo Gallery
Monday 12th October 2020
Completed a major update to the automatically number documents add-in, prompted by suggestions from a user.
Saturday 19th September 2020
Updated the Extract Data from E-Mailed Messages add-in.
Tuesday 25th August 2020
Fixed an error log reporting issue in the batch processes add-in.
Thursday 20th August 2020
Modified the Save in Two Places add-in for Word to allow the same settings to be used for all documents.
Thursday 13th August 2020
The 13th may for some be an inauspicious day for an update, but Microsoft Security as got it into its head that my Many to One template is harmful ... again ... and users are complaining they cannot download it. There is no evidence of a Trojan associated with this template but getting that through to Microsoft is pointless.
I have made some changes to the ribbon and removed the thumbnail and Microsoft seems happy again. Now only a couple of minor AV players no-one has ever heard of are reporting problems. If you couldn't download version 17.1, try again with version 17.2
Sunday 9th August 2020
Some virus checkers have decided, not for the first time, my self extracting zipfile provided to install the Many to One add-in is problematic. While I am certain it is not, I have removed it and reverted to manual installation instructions.
I have updated some of my Useful VBA functions to improve error handling
Thursday 30th July 2020
Added the options to set the sending account, importance and receipts to the E-Mail Merge add-in
Thursday 16th July 2020
The heat must be getting to me. I have just noticed that I had not error trapped the E-Mail Merge add-in for user's clicking the ribbon buttons when no document is open. Now fixed.
Friday 10th July 2020
Added a note to the 'Insert a Day Other Than Today' code to demonstrate how to use multiple different calculated dates in the same document.
Monday 29th June 2020
Added a feature to the Simple Envelope Creator to detect whether the current document already has an envelope attached, and if so to adopt that envelope for use by the process.
Added reset buttons to the E-mail Merge add-in dialogs to enable the registry entries to be cleared.
Tuesday 23rd June 2020
After addressing the issue with the Document Batch Processor add-in yesterday, overnight someone came up with another unrelated issue, which is that in some circumstances a custom process may not result in a change to the document(s) that Word recognizes as something to be saved, so for custom processes I have set the document flag to unsaved, so that the process will actually save the changes made by the macro.
Monday 22nd June 2020
Replaced a 'rogue' version of the Document Batch Processor add-in and updated the Save in Two Places add-ins for Word and Excel
Sunday 21st June 2020
Updated the Associate Document with Printer add-in to include some improved code sequences.
Saturday 20th June 2020
Of limited use to most users, but hopefully of benefit to budding VBA programmers, I have added the Cell Finder add-in from my own collection of useful tools that enables programmers to easily identify table cell numbers, especially in large tables with merged cells.
Saturday 13th June 2020
Added a print function to the Simple Envelope Creator add-in to enable the envelope to be printed to a dedicated envelope printer of your choice.
Friday 12th June 2020
The Custom Content Control add-in update I posted yesterday has an issue with non-English Windows regional settings. I have addressed the cause of that problem.
Thursday 11th June 2020
Addressed some 64 bit compatibility issues with the Custom Content Control add-in
Monday 8th June 2020
Some minor modifications to the Modify File Dates add-in.
Saturday 6th June 2020
Replaced the long outdated envelope creation tool, that was removed from the site some time ago, with a completely new simple envelope creation add-in
Wednesday 3rd June 2020
Made some improvements to the Print to PDF Creator add-in
Monday 1st June 2020
Made a small change to the error handling in the chart merge add-in
Wednesday 27th May 2020
Another week and a major update to the e-mail merge add-in. It occurred to me that it would be useful to be able to use the process to merge to documents or PDFs as an alternative to merging to e-mail. I have therefore added a complete process to do that based on the original code.
Wednesday 20th May 2020
Added some further features and error handling to the merge to e-mail add-in posted on Monday.
Monday 18th May 2020
Prompted by recent forum posts, I have prepared an add-in to aid mail merging from Word to e-mail.
Monday 11th May 2020
It has been somewhat remiss of me that I have neglected my Useful Links page. Having had it pointed out hat some of the links were no longer viable, I have removed those links.
Sunday 10th May 2020
I found out a while ago that a line of code that I had used in my Disclaimer dialog, that features in all my add-ins, causes an error when used with some non-English regional settings, I have been addressing this by popularity of the add-ins by reference to the numbers of downloads, Today I have updated several more of the add-ins to eliminate the error. No-one has complained about the issue with this batch of add-ins, so I have retained the same version numbers.
If anyone finds that when they start any of my add-ins for the first time, they are using non-English regional settings n Windows, they see an error message and the disclaimer text is not properly displayed, let me know as it's a simple fix.
Friday 8th May 2020
I have made a couple of small additions to the Document Batch Processor add-in to both optionally Remove Comments and to accept all tracked changes, in conjunction with the Remove Personal Information process.
Based on work undertaken to improve the Many to One add-in posted on Tuesday, I have applied similar improvements to the Merge and Split add-in
Tuesday 5th May 2020
I have added to the Many to One add-in the option to use a field from the data source to provide a password when creating PDF files using PDF Creator in conjunction with the process
Friday 1st May 2020
Added further error handling to the Save Numbered Versions add-in and addressed a couple of minor bugs.
Tuesday 28th April 2020
Following a suggestion from a user, I have added a function to load sets of document folders to the Insert Documents add-in, from an Excel worksheet.
Thursday 23rd April 2020
Hot on the heels of last weekend's update to the Word Document Batch Processes add-in I have had feedback from two users who have made valid suggestions to improve the add-in further. One concerns the possible interaction with tracking changes being turned on. The other was a suggestion to add a process to remove personal information from the document. Both have been addressed
Sunday 19th April 2020
Updated the Word Document Batch Processes add-in to provide a separate document for the Find and replace (with table defined pairs) option, to minimise security related issues.
Thursday 9th April 2020
Occasionally users have reported a Runtime Error 13 when trying to use some of my add-ins, which I had hitherto been unable to reproduce, but thanks to the persistence of a Hungarian user, the issue was tracked down to a line of code that I use in my disclaimer dialog, that clashes with some non English regional settings (in his case Hungarian).
Having identified and eliminated the problem I have currently updated my most popular mail merge add-ins (Merge and Split, Many to One and Individual Merge Letters) to allow for this change for non-English regional users. I will get around to doing others as and when I have time, or users report the problem.
Sunday 22nd March 2020
With some trepidation I have uploaded a major update to the Many to One add-in.
I have frequently been asked to make the add-in retain all the settings, so that for the next merge the add-in settings will not have to be reconfigured. I have resisted because the add-in makes extensive use of the registry and addressing the logic involved, to get all the various options to work seamlessly, has been like herding cats. Still while in a self imposed isolation from the coronavirus epidemic ravaging the world, I have had the time to work on it. I believe I have it cracked ... though users will no doubt be quick to point out any flaws.
The add-in looks and performs much the same as before, so I have not updated the web page other than to add a note about the additions.
Saturday 14th March 2020
I have prepared a new YouTube video that covers the many to one mail merge process
Monday 9th March 2020
Introduced some further error handling to the Merge and Split add-in
Friday 6th March 2020
Update to the old Document Batch Converter to provide an option to fix date and createdate fields as text.
Thursday 5th March 2020
Addressed the issue when using the Many to One add-in of empty lines in addresses due to missing data in the record merged.
Friday 14th February 2020
Update of the Many to One mail merge add-in to facilitate the merging of graphics identified in the data source.
Made some improvements to the add in to manage Word backup files.
Monday 10th February 2020
Uploaded a new add-in to manage Word backup files
Friday 31st January 2020
As occasionally happens when you fix one issue it has a knock-on effect elsewhere and so it was with the Many to One Mail Merge add-in I posted yesterday in which the hyperlink fix would make unwanted changes to some documents. I have therefore made the hyperlink fix switchable as it will not be required for most users and for those it does, the problems it creates can be addressed with with a macro or by attention to the formatting of the merge document.
Thursday 30th January 2020
Addressed an issue relating to hyperlinks in the Many to One Mail Merge add-in, fixed a display anomaly on the main dialog and changed the character used when a field is empty from '—' to a zero length space.
Tuesday 28th January 2020
Updated the Merge and Split add-in to address a few issues and add merge to e-mail.
Sunday 26th January 2020
I have made some, mainly cosmetic, changes to the Insert Documents ('Boiler') add-in, and fixed a couple of minor bugs.
Saturday 25th January 2020
It was pointed out to me by a user that when merged to a e-mail, using Word's merge to e-mail (and for that matter my many to one merge to email) the merge fields inserted by the merge hyperlinks add-in did not display correctly after the merge. I have therefore included a new function with the Hyperlink add-in to enable a merge to e-mail to complete with the hyperlink merge field results preserved.
Thursday 16th January 2020
Created a new add-in to create envelopes from a document containing letters created by mail merge.
Sunday 12th January 2020
Fixed a bug in the Word old document format batch converter that allowed duplicate filenames to be overwritten when this was not desired. I also ensured that DOT format templates could be converted to the latest formats.
Friday 10th January 2020
Minor updates to the Select Folder and Save and Field Text Converter add-ins
Saturday 4th January 2020
An enquiry to my web site concerning my Insert Custom Comments add-in for Word, reminded me of this add-in which I have not looked at for several years. Unfortunately the enquirer was using the Mac version of Word, with which this add-in is not compatible, but the enquiry prompted me to revisit and make extensive changes to the add-in.
I have also added a couple of convenience features to my Insert Mergefield add-in, to allow double click insertion of fields directly from the lists, and the convenience of buttons for toggling field codes and preview mode from the same dialog.
Thursday 2nd January 2020
Made some minor improvements and fixed a couple of bugs in the Extract Images from Documents etc. add-in.
Wednesday 1st January 2020
It's New Year's Day. A Happy New Year to Microsoft Office users who have found my add-ins and tips useful.
I have started the year with an update to my Insert Future/Past Dates add-in and introduced a new add-in that inserts the time at preset intervals e.g. for logging purposes.
Friday 27th December 2019
As a final flourish to the year I have been working on my Insert Content Control add-in. Having used it in anger for some time, and taking on board user comments, I have changed some defaults, added some facilities and generally improved the usefulness of the tools, which should benefit anyone using content controls to create templates and forms.
Tuesday 10th December 2019
Based on a request from a private client, I have made some improvements to the Perpetual Calendar add-in.
Wednesday 4th December 2019
I have fixed a few issues in the Content Control Tools add-in and have added a function to allow the location and selection of content controls from a list.
Sunday 1st December 2019
Because I work with a number of private clients, I make extensive use of my 'Temporarily load Word global add-in templates' add-in. Although a version of this add-in has been available here for a couple of years, I have made a number of improvements since then, based on my own experiences. The changes are such that I have now updated the file available for download and documented the changes on the web page.
I have also similarly updated the Word version of the Select Template/Document add-in which shares a lot of code with the above.
Sunday 17th November 2019
Updated the Open Documents from List add-in to store its data in the registry.
Saturday 9th November 2019
Fixed a bug in the Document Converter add-in, that was preventing the old file dates from being retained.
Thursday 31st October 2019
Added further functionality to the 'Lined Headings' add-in, to fill the white space at the ends of paragraphs with lines.
Friday 25th October 2019
Minor bug fix to Photo Gallery add-in that affected single column galleries, with captions in the left column.
Tuesday 22nd October 2019
Added the option to suppress alert messages when printing using the Multiple Document Batch Printer add-in.
Sunday 20th October 2019
Added a new page and simple add-in to format heading texts with assorted lines for emphasis.
Tuesday 15th October 2019
Added a new page and simple add-in to toggle between two user selectable measurement units.
Saturday 12th October 2019
Some users have reported an issue with the Many to One Mail Merge add-in version 16.4 not running. This has been traced to an issue with the '#' check. Now fixed.
Sunday 6th October 2019
I have had occasional reports of errors when starting the Individual Merge Letters add-in, and several requests to allow existing files of the same name to be overwritten. I have therefore increased the error handling and added a selectable option to allow overwriting - though this should be used with caution.
Wednesday 11th September 2019
Minor bug fix to the Print an Envelope or Label add-in
Wednesday 4th September 2019
A user pointed out that some AV software was reporting the self extracting zip file in the Insert Documents add-in was potentially malicious. This was undoubtedly a false positive, but to remove alarm I have eliminated the self extracting zip and added new instructions to the download.
Sunday 1st September 2019
Updated the Table of Contents add-in primarily to improve the removal of style separators, but also dialogs updated. Dialogs that have not been changed significantly have not been updated on the web page.
Saturday 24th August 2019
In response to a user suggestion I have completely redeveloped the Works etc. document format batch converter add-in, to update and improve functionality.
Sunday 11th August 2019
Following a user request, I have made the '#' check in the Many to One merge add-in optional and switchable from the configuration dialog. Be aware that the presence of the '#' symbol in the data source could result in the wrong data being applied to some records.
Monday 5th August 2019
A user pointed out an issue with the photo gallery add-in that occurred when mixed galleries of portrait and landscape oriented images were used..This is always going to create a dilemma whether to have the portrait or the landscape images filling the cells. I have therefore added a check box to the configuration to allow the user to choose which orientation to favour.
Saturday 20th July 2019
In response to a user suggestion, I have added buttons to the configuration dialog of the Save in Two Places add-ins to allow for the removal of the configuration settings from the current document/workbook. Additionally I have made some improvements to the Excel version of the add-in.
A few days ago I noticed a problem with my extract images from documents etc add-in. This related to a failure to delete a temporary file and which caused much head scratching. However I have now addressed the issue and updated the add-in to use my latest code sequences and formats.
Friday 12th July 2019
I have made some minor changes to the Extract Data from Forms add-in, essentially to bring it up to date.
Tuesday 9th July 2019
On further reflection I decided to remove the option to run a macro before or after the document was originally saved from the Merge and Split add-in as it served no useful purpose, when running the macro after the document was saved should work equally well in all circumstances.
Monday 8th July 2019
Prompted by yesterday's change to the Merge and Split add-in, I have made a change to the Individual Merge Letters add-in also, however rather than provide an option, I have changed the point at which the macro is run to after the document has been named and saved (the document is then saved again to include whatever changes the macro has been used to make).
Sunday 7th July 2019
A user wanted to know if Merge and Split could be used to add the names of the split documents to those documents. As the macro function provided could in theory do that, it could only do so after the documents are named, so I have provided the option to run the macro before or after the documents are named.
Saturday 6th July 2019
Having tried with some difficulty to explain the difference between protecting a form with legacy fields and a form with content controls, I thought it worth adding the option to protect the form when the Content Controls add-in was used to convert form fields to content controls.
While testing the modification I found a bug in the conversion code that caused it to crash if there were dropdown formfields that had no dropdown entries. I have addressed that issue and would point out that should there for any reason be such a field, then the content control created from it may be edited to include the list items using other tools provided in the add-in..
Sunday 30th June 2019
On Friday I added the ability to set the margins for the cells used for the images (but not the captions) to the Photo Gallery add-in. However I thought it churlish not to end the month without extending that ability to the caption cells also. This created problems because of the size of the dialog and thus the requirement to make the margin settings dual function, to avoid expanding the dialog further.
This created a large amount of additional programming to ensure that not only were the various relevant controls dual purpose, but that the user was not left in the dark as to what was actually changed. I chose to use context sensitive colour coding and appropriate labelling to achieve this aim. The latest version thus allows the cell margins to be set independently.
Friday 28th June 2019
A forum user commented on the desirability of being able to adjust the cell padding around the images inserted by the Photo Gallery add-in. I agreed that this was a sensible idea and so I have incorporated it into the add-in's configuration. I have not added similar padding to the caption cells.
Friday 21st June 2019
I have discovered that Word has a tendency to add an extra blank page when creating labels that fill the page without margins. In Monday's Duplex Name Labels add-in update I had trapped this, but have since found that it can result in being unable to use the add-in's propagate function for duplex labels, so I have removed the trapping. The blank page does not otherwise appear to cause a problem for the actual merge.
Monday 17th June 2019
While playing with yesterday's Duplex Name Labels add-in update, I thought it worth improving the dialog and the ribbon button and took the opportunity to use the registry to store the data rather than the template as this both improves the speed of processing and reduces the amount of coding required.
Sunday 16th June 2019
Some genius decided it would be a good idea for Office 2016 to change some of the IDs used by Word to create labels. This meant that the , which uses those IDs to determine which labels are used for they duplex merge. Also some of the existing labels have been removed from the list of those available to be selected. I have spent most of the day determining which of the 21 labels available to he add-in have changed and which have been removed and recoding to make it work again.
It hasn't helped that for Word 2013 and earlier, the original IDs still apply and the new IDs don't work for those earlier versions, thus complicating the code to allow for use across different Word versions.
I am sure that Microsoft will have had a good reason for doing this, but I feel to see what it could have been.
Saturday 8th June 2019
Having noted in the Microsoft support forums some dissatisfaction with the auto-save function, in recent versions of Word and Excel, and its apparent limitation to use when working with OneDrive, I have revisited my SaveReminder add-in and updated the processes. This should now provide an auto-save function when working, wherever the files are saved, and when used in partnership with the Save in Two Places add-in, also provides automatic backup to a location of your choice.
Tuesday 28th May 2019
It appears there may have been some goalpost shifting by Microsoft which has resulted in a critical error in my Interactive MultiChoice Questions add-in. Now fixed.
Monday 27th May 2019
I am at a loss to explain how I managed it, but the field to text add-in had the wrong file in the zip which caused some confusion for users who downloaded it. I have now updated the correct file and replaced the defective ZIP.
Saturday 18th May 2019
While working on another add-in, I spotted that the disclaimer text associated with the Bookmarks and Variables etc. editor was not working as intended. This is now fixed.
The other add-in referred to above was in fact my Envelope and Label Printer add-in, which needed some additional error handling and a major update to the dialogs to bring it up to my current specifications.
Friday 17th May 2019
The updated version of the Many To One merge add-in that I posted last weekend worked well, but I was unhappy with the function to mute sounds, so confined to my office after hospital treatment, I have used the opportunity to move the option it to the configuration dialog and added a toggle button which illustrates the status of the sound button at a glance.The merge part is unchanged.
Sunday 12th May 2019
For some months I have been getting intermittent complaints about a run time error that occurred when using the Many to One add-in. It was an error I had hitherto been unable to reproduce, however a user established exactly what conditions were required to achieve it, enabling it to be reproduced and consequently eliminated.
While addressing this issue, I undertook a more radical upgrade of the processes, so while it looks superficially the same as earlier versions, users familiar with it will see a number of changes, including the ability to run your own macros before saving the individual documents, that was previously only available on request. I have also ramped up the availability of context sensitive help.
Friday 10th May 2019
Improved the dialog and added some further error handling to the Individual Merge Letters add-in.
Wednesday 8th May 2019
A user found a bug in the Variables etc. editor add-in, when using legacy form fields within bookmarked locations. Given that no-one else has reported the error in the last eight years, I would suggest it is not a common problem, however I have error trapped it.
Tuesday 7th May 2019
In response to a user request, I have added the ability to run a macro before saving split merged documents using the Merge and Split add-in.
Sunday 5th May 2019
A user reported that the Excel version of the Save in Two Places add-in did not respond to the request to overwrite existing backups. That has now been addressed. In addition
I have also addressed a similar issue in the Word version and updated both add-ins to employ my latest versions of several code sequences..
Thursday 2nd May 2019
Added the basic code to populate a document with content controls from a Userform
Monday 29th April 2019
Continuing with the bar code theme that has occupied my time for the past week or so, I have included the option to add bar codes to the Sequentially Numbered Labels add-in.
Saturday 27th April 2019
The Insert Bar Code add-in I posted on Monday prompted me to adapt my Bar Code labels add-in to employ the Bar Code fields introduced in Word 2013.
If you are using the earlier version with Word 2010 or earlier, note that the latest version is not compatible with those versions of Word.
Monday 22nd April 2019
If you downloaded yesterday's update of the Insert Bar Code add-in please do so again as I have made a couple of small detail changes to the dialog and messaging that didn't warrant a new release number.
Sunday 21st April 2019
Completed a major update to the Insert Bar Code add-in to improve the dialog and to add a complete new process to replace texts from a list with their bar coded versions.
Friday 19th April 2019
A user recently pointed out that there was an anomaly with my example documents for the Chart Merge add-in which related to the bookmarks in that document. While the issue was covered on the web page, it was worth addressing the issue in the document. That started me off on an update for the add-in that proved far more complicated than I had hoped, in order to incorporate a greater level of error handing, and additional context sensitive help.
Wednesday 17th April 2019
User feedback indicated that a problem remained relating to the display of captions when using the Photo Gallery add-in with worksheet data other than that suggested. This has been resolved and now captions should be displayed correctly even with such diverse worksheet column layouts.
Monday 15th April 2019
Improved the functionality of the Merge Outlook Contacts add-in.
Sunday 14th April 2019
Added a function to the Content Control Tools add-in to enable the filling of List and Combo box content controls from a column in an Excel worksheet.
Monday 18th March 2019
It didn't take long for someone to find the deliberate mistake in yesterday's calendar update :(
The Excel data import function was not working reliably because of changed I made to achieve portrait mode. Now fixed.
Sunday 17th March 2019
Updated the Perpetual Calendar add-in to optionally produce calendars in portrait mode .
Sunday 3rd March 2019
Minor updates to the Insert Content Control add-in based primarily on my own use of this add-in.
Sunday 24th February 2019
It is no secret that the Photo Gallery Template, which has caused me so many problems recently, has been a joint development between myself and my old friend Greg Maxey. Having fixed the issues (hopefully) with the captions, I sent the changes on to him so that he could update his cosmetically different version. In return he posted back changes he had been working on with regard to the issue of displaying transparent png files on the userform.
Frankly I had not been bothered that the display of transparent backgrounds was black rather than transparent as the display was adequate to ensure that the correct image was included, but he had done such a good job fixing this anomaly that it seemed churlish not to include it, so gallery users can have yet another updated version.
Thursday 21st February 2019
An old problem related to the Many to One add-in has reared its head again. This concerns the use of the hash symbol '#' in the data. This is not correctly resolved by the process and can result in missing of incorrect data or the process crashing. I have therefore added a trap to interrogate the data for the presence of the hash and stop the merge before it crashes.
After hours of testing the Photo Gallery add-in, and having spent many more hours working on the captions for single column galleries, I was astonished and dismayed to realise I had left out a section of code that aligns the captions where there are two or more columns. This has now been addressed.
Tuesday 19th February 2019
A couple of users reported that they could not get the Photo Gallery add-in to reproduce the caption texts consistently (or in one case at all) so I decided to rebuild the process of creating the gallery and incorporate some enhancements. This resulted in many hours' work, but I am now pretty confident that the captions will be reproduced for all users.
Thursday 7th February 2019
The correction I made to Merge and Split last week apparently didn't work in some circumstances, where the header was filled with a table. This has now, hopefully, been corrected
Friday 1st February 2019
For some considerable time I have had feedback relating to an error condition in my Many to One add-in that occasionally occurs and which I have been unable to repeat in order to address it. Yesterday thanks to testing with a users' files, I was able to repeat the error condition and have updated the add-in to address it.
I regret I still have been unable to do anything about some obscure AV products from identifying the code as malicious. The main players in this field do not flag an error, thankfully.
A user reported that there was an issue with headers and footers when splitting a document with Merge and Split. This was an issue that no-one else has reported and which I had completely missed myself, but it did exist and is now addressed.
Monday 7th January 2019
Regrettably the Photo Gallery captions issue had not been as fixed as I hoped. I have therefore redeveloped the captions insertion code and added code to retain the last used Excel data file, so that users can switch between Excel and Folder lists.
Saturday 5th January 2019
Fixed a minor bug in the Photo Gallery template that caused the image captions to display incorrectly in some situations. I also took the opportunity to improve some aspects of the code.
Friday 4th January 2019
Made a few cosmetic changes and fixed a bug in my Address Book add-in
Thursday 3rd January 2019
When working on private client data, I discovered a couple of minor issues of omission with the Insert Content Control add-in which have been addresses
Tuesday 1st January 2019
Happy New Year! And to start the year I have made a major update to the Insert Content Control add-in function I included last week.
Friday 28th December 2018
While browsing a Word forum during the Christmas holiday I was inspired to add a further option to my Insert Content Control add-in to enable a user to search for a text and replace that text with a content control.
Tuesday 25th December 2018
A Merry Christmas to all, and as a small present I have updated the Number Labels Add-in to include some new features and to update the code to include my latest code sequences as appropriate.
Monday 3rd December 2018
Unfortunately yesterday's update to the insert/edit content control add-in introduced a validation bug that prevented the creation of controls process from working. Now fixed.
Sunday 2nd December 2018
Prompted by some issues with a forum user's complex form I have added another layer of functions to to accommodate making bulk changes to list and combo box content controls.
Saturday 1st December 2018
I have added an option to the insert/edit content control add-in to add or remove editors to all the content controls in a document to facilitate its use as a protected form.
Friday 23rd November 2018
I have been working for some weeks on a major upgrade for my Insert Content Control toolkit add-in. The fruits of that endeavour are now available for users to try for themselves.
Sunday 4th November 2018
Updated the Insert Future Dates add-in to include some minor improvements.
Monday 29th October 2018
Recently I have been confined to barracks with health related issues so I have been filling my time making updates to add-ins, and particularly the Merge and Split add-in which has been extensively reworked. I have competed the cycle of updates with the provision of an option to merge the split documents as attachments to e-mail messages.
It doesn't have the extensive error checking or range of options that http://www.gmayor.com/ManyToOne.htm provides for e-mail merges, but it does the job.
Saturday 27th October 2018
Further updates to improve the userform logistics and the help information of the merge and split add-in.
Thursday 25th October 2018
Minor update to the Word Batch Processes add-in to improve messaging and reflect some changes relating to more recent Office versions.
Wednesday 24th October 2018
Updated the merge and split add-in to include some code modifications to improve efficiency and to convert the process to store settings in the registry rather than in the add-in template.
Friday 12th October 2018
I have updated the photo gallery add-in following a user request, to provide an option for a single column of images with the captions alongside.
Sunday 23rd September 2018
While working with the revised Content Control add-in I posted yesterday I felt that the dialogs could be improved and needed the addition of scroll bars for long list entries, so I have made some minor aesthetic changes. Operationally the process hasn't changed.
Saturday 22nd September 2018
Due to health and other issues I have neglected the site somewhat over the summer, however I have increased the usefulness of my Insert Content Control add-in to allow the inclusion of separate Value and Display Name texts for list and combo box controls
Monday 23rd July 2018
While customizing the Photo Gallery add-in for a private client, I took the opportunity to improve the progress indicator, eliminated a tendency to hang when large numbers of images were inserted, and updated the messaging to conform with my latest standards.
Sunday 15th July 2018
Following feedback from a user of the Boiler add-in, I have added functionality to handle endnotes and removed the superfluous configuration dialog as configuration can all be handles from the main dialog.
Friday 13th July 2018
Friday 13th - lucky for some :) I have been meaning to post an updated version of my Select Template add-in for some time as the version I am using with Word has some additional features. However I have not yet added those features to the Excel version. However a user's interest in the add-in has prompted me to update - just the Word version for now. I will work on the Excel version when I have a little more time available.
Monday 9th July 2018
Having uploaded a new bar code add-in yesterday I thought it worth looking again at the old BarCodeLabels add-in and to my shame found it didn't work correctly when faced with producing full pages of labels, so I have re-written that section of code and added progress indicators.
I may revise it, when I have time, to use the DISPLAYBARCODE field, but if you want to use that to create labels, then you can use mail merge in conjunction with yesterday's add-in.
Sunday 8th July 2018
For various reasons I have not been able to make any changes to the site recently, however I have not been idle and have produced an add-in to help users with the syntax for the new DISPLAYBARCODE and MERGEBARCODE fields introduced with Office 2013
Wednesday 2nd May 2018
Corrected an issue relating to file naming in the Many to One Merge add-in when there are spaces at the end of the filename.
Saturday 28th April 2018
Addressed the issue of split merge documents losing their header footers when split with the Individual Merge Letters add-in.
Tuesday 24th April 2018
I have just discovered that Office 2016 does not report Application.Version as 16.0 as in earlier versions, but reports the build number, so I have modified the SQL check code to enable the code to access the correct value when reading and writing the registry.
Saturday 21st April 2018
In the never ending battle to stop the Many to One add-in from being reported as malicious by some obscure AV products, I have completely re-written the add-in from scratch, removing as many items as I could that might be seen as suspect, while still allowing the process to work. However because it allows Word to create folders in Outlook, it will never be entirely successful. Still the new version is leaner than the old one and uses some newer dialogs and techniques..
Thursday 19th April 2018
Small modification to the Select template add-in - Excel version
Friday 13th April 2018
Superstitious? I have just made a small modification to the Insert Content Control add-in to improve the insertion of content controls into empty table cells.
Monday 9th April 2018
As so often happens when I release a new add-in, feedback results in valuable suggestions for change, and while the original version of the Insert Content Control add-in was aimed more at my personal requirements. My old friend Greg Maxey popped up with some suggestions to make it more universally applicable, so I have incorporated those changes
Sunday 8th April 2018
I have created and added a new add-in that serves to aid the insertion and editing of content controls.
Tuesday 3rd April 2018
I have added a further page concerning the issues regarding malicious file warnings when downloading the Many to One add-in.
Saturday 10th March 2018
Major update to the Mail Merge Graphics add-in, prompted by a forum question, to include the insertion of graphics into a mail merge document from file or from the web.
Wednesday 7th March 2018
I have recently learned that my contact page form is not working, so if you have been trying to get hold of me, in the past couple of weeks or so, I apologise for that. Until I can resolve the issue, I have replaced the contact form with a simple e-mail link and hope that the spam filter will not result in even more lost correspondence. If you see an error on the page' refresh the page in your browser.
Wednesday 28th February 2018
A user pointed out that the additional macro function in the Individual Merge Letters add-in was not working as anticipated on the first document produced by the merge. The reason took some finding, but it is now fixed.
Sunday 21st January 2018
Added some further VBA function code examples to my Useful Functions page.
Thursday 18th January 2018
The year has not started well with further anti-virus warnings pointing to the Many to One add-in. None of the main AV software scanners find anything wrong with the software, and I cannot find a problem with it, but some of the fringe players had flagged up various warnings.
The fact that there is no consistency between them suggests that they are false readings, but I understand all too well the alarm this can cause and so I have removed the self extracting installer from the zip file, and made several changes to the code to address matters that might have caused concern.
If any user is concerned please contact me via my Contact page.
Saturday 30th December 2017
Continuing with the modifications to my various add-ins that store folder allocations, I have now completed changes to the the last such add-in - Select Folder and Save - to eliminate the need for the configuration folder, and to improve the behaviour of the process when saving to folders where the filename already exists. I have also added the path and filename to the Word title bar.
Friday 29th December 2017
I have been thinking about adapting the Select Document Template add-in to work with documents also, but never quite got around to it, until this morning when a forum user was complaining about Word's document selection in the recent Word versions, so I have pressed ahead and added document selection, by repurposing the dialog to store and select document folders as well as template folders - each entirely separate from one another.
Thursday 28th December 2017
Further minor updates to the List Variables, Bookmarks, Content Controls and DocProperties add-in relating to the Unique Resource Identifier selection.
Wednesday 27th December 2017
A user has pointed out that there is an issue with the List Variables, Bookmarks, Content Controls and DocProperties add-in relating to the Unique Resource Identifier selection, so I have redesigned that section of the add-in. I have also taken the opportunity to include the creation of docvariables from an Excel worksheet that I added to the alternative version of the add-in last week. Both add-ins are included in the same zip file.
I also discovered a minor issue relating to my load Word add-ins add-in where when only one item was selected in a folder, deselecting that item did not allow the change to be updated, so I have fixed that also.
Tuesday 26th December 2017
With the detritus of the festivities cleared away and wondering what to do with mountains of left over turkey, I thought I would check the work I did yesterday and spotted an omission in the Select Template add-in for Excel, so I have quickly edited it and added it to the zip. The Word version didn't share the issue in question so remains the same.
Monday 25th December 2017
Today before the festivities begin, I have updated my Load Add-ins and Select Template add-ins for Word (and in the case of the latter for Excel) in which I have eliminated the configuration dialogs, as the configuration is more easily achieved from the main dialogs.
Sunday 24th December 2017
A forum user posed the question whether it was possible to insert a set of document variables and their values from an Excel worksheet. It is of course possible and I responded as such, however it occurred to me that it would be relatively simple to add such a facility to my Variables, Bookmarks etc. editor add-in so I thought I would amuse myself on a rather dull Christmas Eve morning adding it.
It proved a little less simple than I had envisaged, because of lack of space on the multi-function userform, but I managed to squeeze it in by repurposing some of the existing fields.
Saturday 23rd December 2017
I have made some minor updates to the add-in to modify file dates and times. I felt the command group should more appropriately be located on the Developer tab where I found it occupied too much ribbon space, so I have removed the minor commands from the ribbon group and added them to the main dialog. This leaves just one button on the Developer tab to activate the process.
Friday 22nd December 2017
Prompted by a forum poster in a discussion about media files in a PowerPoint presentation, I thought it would be worth updating my Extract Images add-in to allow the selection of individual media types, which proved easier said than done, but I have now uploaded the updated version.
Wednesday 13th December 2017
A major update to the Load Session Add-ins template to enable the templates to be optionally selected and retained from multiple folders for re-loading the next time Word is started..
Sunday 26th November 2017
Fixed a bug in the Variables, Bookmarks and Content Controls Editor that cause an error condition when mapping locked content controls.
Thursday 23rd November 2017
I had recently become aware of a minor bug in the Load Session Add-ins template, which is a process I use constantly, that meant that if only one selected add-in was stored, that one add-in would not reload on startup, when the appropriate check box was checked. When two or more add-ins were selected, the issue didn't arise, which was why I hadn't noticed it earlier. This has now been addressed with Version 2.0.
Sunday 12th November 2017
Minor bug-fix to the Associate Printer add-in. Where the association was applied to an unnamed document, and the document was not saved at the prompt, an error condition resulted. This has now been trapped.
Saturday 11th November 2017
For some time now the occasional user had reported that the Many to One add-in produced an error when run. I have not been able to reproduce that error, however it has occurred to me that while Outlook is included with recent Office versions, some users may prefer to use a different e-mail client, and the add-in only checked to establish whether Outlook was present, and not if it was the default e-mail application, so I have introduced a further check to establish whether Outlook is the default e-mail application, as some of the features rely on Outlook being available and operational. If Outlook is not the default e-mail application, those Outlook specific features are disabled.
I also noticed a problem with the major update to the Insert Documents add-in that I posted yesterday so I have also fixed that with Version 3.9.
I have added a feature to the Load Session Add-ins add-in to enable the last selection of add-ins to be retained and reloaded automatically next time Word is started.
Thursday 9th November 2017
I thought it would be a good idea to update the Insert Documents (Boiler) add-in to take advantage of the enhanced folder selection I have used in several recent add-ins and took the opportunity to add some enhanced features to make it even more useful.
Sunday 5th November 2017
Created a new add-in to select a folder and save the current document. The aim of this is to more simply access a range of folders from the document itself, e.g. when creating new documents for different clients.
While working on the new add-in which uses the principles inherent in the Load Session Add-ins and Select Template add-ins to select folders, I spotted a glaring error that prevents the folder selection buttons from working as intended, when the selection button number is higher than 9. This was easily fixed and I have updated the versions of both files.
There was also a problem with the Automatic Document Numbering add-in with regard to the new batch printing option, which I have also now fixed.
Tuesday 31st October 2017
The Automatic Numbering Documents add-in I updated yesterday had a minor issue when calculating the next number when collating printed batches of documents, so i have fixed that.
Following another update to Windows Defender the Many to One add-in zip was again reporting a potential virus relating to the self extracting installer. To overcome this I created a completely new zip and a new version of the installer. This now reports no virus issues. Having conducted tests with assorted reputable virus checkers, I can only conclude that Windows Defender was wrongly reporting the issue. Nevertheless this is not the sort of message I want users to see when they download from my web site.
Monday 30th October 2017
Following a suggestion from a user, I have added the option to print a batch of sequentially numbered documents to the Automatic Numbering Documents add-in, and took the opportunity to bring the rest of the code up to date.
Tuesday 24th October 2017
As some users may have found, a recent update to Windows Defender flagged Many to One add-in version 14.8 as infected with a virus (see yesterday's What's New item). While I am pretty certain that there was no problem with this file, I cannot afford to take that chance and I have therefore redeveloped that add-in based on a new template. Version 14.9 is now available for download.
Monday 23rd October 2017
The most recent update to Windows Defender reports my Many to One add-in version 14.8 as having been infected by a Trojan Win32/Tiggre!plock. I can find no useful information about that trojan, and I have checked my code and there are no changes to it, but to avoid alarm I have changed the on-line version for an earlier version, while I discuss it with Microsoft.
Friday 29th September 2017
I have added further error trapping to the Many to One add-in to cover the erroneous use of multiple tables in a merge document and modified the readme file in the zip with regard to the 64 bit version of Office.
Friday 8th September 2017
Fixed a minor bug in the Word Batch Printer add-in which caused an error condition under some circumstances.
Monday 4th September 2017
Changed some contentious code in the SplitMerge and Merge and Split add-ins that may have prevented them from working in the 64 bit version of Word.
Thursday 31st August 2017
Despite Microsoft's recommendations it seems some people have been installing the 64 bit version of Office rather than the more universally acceptable 32 bit version, which runs quite happily in 64 bit Windows versions.
This has caused me a few problems for recent updates to the Many to One add-in particularly as it features several functions that baulk when used with 64 bit Office. I have however been working on the problem with the aid of some users who for various reasons must use 64 bit Office, without much success. However now I think I have cracked the problem so I have updated the version available to accommodate the code changes. Let's hope this marks the end of the 64 bit compatibility issues.
Wednesday 30th August 2017
Fixed a bug common to both my chart merge add-ins.
Monday 28th August 2017
I hadn't planned on working on the Excel version of the Select Template add-in today but events took a different path and so I had the time available to address it. I also added a copy function to both the Word and Excel versions.
Both are contained in one zip file linked from the web page.
Sunday 27th August 2017
I have added some extra functionality to the Select Template add-in and to the essentially similar Load Session Add-ins add-in. I have also temporarily removed the Excel version of the Select Template add-in, as I am unhappy with it in its present state. Although it does work, it needs additional error trapping and the code and interface modifying to match the latest changes to the Word version.
Friday 25th August 2017
Minor update to the Select Template add-in, to fix the 'continue button' unavailability on second use.
Saturday 19th August 2017
I have changed the search engine used on my web site to DuckDuckGo, for no better reason that it finds stuff that the Google engine misses.
Monday 14th August 2017
The Load Session Add-ins add-in and the Select Document Template add-in share much of their code, and having been using them more or less continuously since their development, I felt that the number of available folders was lacking and so I have doubled that to 16. I have moved the reset button to the configuration dialog, where it is less likely to be activated by accident.
In addition, I felt that Excel users may also benefit from being able to select templates in the same way and so I have created an Excel version of the Select Document Template add-in and that is included in the same zip file, linked from the page.
Friday 11th August 2017
A Word 2007 user reported a problem with version 14.4 of the Many to One add-in. This was attributable to a snippet of code that is not compatible with Word 2007. However I have fixed it in version 14.5 now available.
Word versions later than 2007 are not affected,
Sunday 6th August 2017
Whilst working with the Load Session Add-ins add-in, I noticed a small anomaly in the new functionality I added on Friday which is now fixed. As the same issue affects the Select Document Template add-in, I have corrected that also.
Friday 4th August 2017
During a recent exchange of correspondence by e-mail, with my old friend Greg Maxey, it occurred to me that I could modify my Load Session Add-ins temporarily add-in to create a function that would overcome the poor document template selection in recent Word versions, and especially in Word 2016.
A process that worked really well in Word 2010 was cast aside and new horrors were inflicted upon us. My answer is thus the Select Document template add-in which I have uploaded today.
It also occurred to me that it would be more convenient if unused folder selection buttons (see the relevant web page) could be associated directly from the button, rather than use the configuration, so I added this also to the Load Session Add-ins temporarily add-in also.
Thursday 3rd August 2017
While working on another project, I spotted a minor bug in the Load Session Add-ins temporarily add-in, that caused a minor display anomaly in the configuration dialog. I also made a minor change to hopefully improve 64 bit Word compatibility - though I would stress this has not been tested in the 64 bit version of Word. (The 32 bit version is recommended for most users on all compatible Windows operating systems).
Sunday 30th July 2017
Aspects of the Many to One add-in, particularly for some users with Exchange Server e-mail accounts have been problematical and so I have extensively reworked the whole process, with particular emphasis on the e-mail functionality with regard to the use of 'Nicknames' to represent e-mail addresses, and generally simplified the e-mail functions to try and overcome the issues.
I also discovered that the e-mail signatures were no longer working as expected, and suspect a Microsoft update may have had its fingers in that issue. Similarly the html personalised covering message had ceased working correctly, so that too has been addressed.
Hopefully those users who had been having problems will find this update has addressed them.
Sunday 16th July 2017
As so often happens when I post something new on the site, I immediately see how it could be improved. This is the case with the File Date Modification add-in I posted Friday. I have therefore introduced some updates to show the current settings of the files and to allow the user whether or not to reset the read-only attribute any files that have had the attribute removed in order to process the dates.
Friday 14th July 2017
It is summer here. The temperatures are in the 30s and the humidity so high that at times visibility is markedly impaired. Going out in that is no fun so I have been getting round to some tasks that I have hitherto been unable to complete.
Today I have finished a new template project I have been working on. It is admittedly something of a self indulgent effort, but some may find it useful, so I have cleaned it up and presented it in my usual format as a stand-alone template or Word add-in.
The aim of the template is to allow users to batch change the file dates associated with a file's properties i.e. the Creation Date, the Last Modified date and the Last Accessed date.
Monday 3rd July 2017
It didn't take long before someone found the deliberate mistake in the recent Many to One update. How embarrassing. Now hopefully fixed .
Friday 23rd June 2017
I have completed a major update of the Many to One add-in. There are still some strange anomalies related to e-mail accounts, but I have tried to trap as many as possible,
The latest version (14.2) of the add-in also includes a new function to toggle the SQL security check from the ribbon and the button to remove the add-in's Draft folder in Outlook has been removed, and that function has been included as an option to the Reset function.
If you spot a problem that has not been covered on the web page (and most are) then please let me know.
Wednesday 14th June 2017
Minor updates to the two Chart merge add-ins (links below) to allow the use of macro enabled data files:
Mail Merge Charts from
Excel Data (Part 1) &
Mail Merge Charts from
Excel Data (Part 2)
Updated the Save in Two Places add-ins for Excel and Word to trap the use of on line storage locations, such as One Drive, which are not currently compatible with the processes.
Monday 12th June 2017
In response to user feedback I have created an Excel version of the Save Numbered Versions add-in, which is now available in the same zip file as the Word version.
Friday 9th June 2017
That didn't last long :( It seems that in fixing one problem I created another unconsidered issue. Let's try again with Many to One Version 14.1, which so far has passed all my tests with a variety of difficult documents and data sources.
Thursday 8th June 2017
Just when I thought it safe to put my head above the parapet with my recent extensive changes to the Many to One add-in, a user popped up with a problem to spoil my day with an error relating to in incorrectly reported incompatible worksheet. After much head scratching I have found and fixed the problem. Hopefully this will keep users happy for a while .
Monday 5th June 2017
Yesterday I posted an update to the Many to One add-in. Since then I have been working on the add-in to attempt to resolve the elusive error condition that a handful of users have reported. I have revised large sections of the code and in doing so, discovered that if you have the data source open in Excel, when running the process, the compatibility of the data source with the process cannot be properly checked and that does result in an error condition. I have therefore trapped that error.
Similarly I discovered that if you use the process to merge child fields into a table and the table option is not checked, that will cause the add-in no end of confusion. I have therefore added code to set the default for any document for many to one merging that has a table in the body of the document to set the table option to true.
I have not added checks to ensure that child fields are actually in the table as this slows the process even further. If it later proves to be desirable I will add a warning message to ensure the option is correctly set.
Hopefully that will keep my support mailbox quiet for a while.
Sunday 4th June 2017
While trying to find the cause of an elusive problem that has affected a handful of users of the Many to One add-in, I discovered an issue that causes the add-in to misidentify some merge documents. This has now been corrected. It remains to be seen if the aforementioned elusive issue has also been corrected, as I still haven't been able to reproduce it.
Monday 22nd May 2017
Fixed a minor error which caused the macro at Check for uncompleted Form Fields to copy and paste incorrectly.
Friday 5th May 2017
It has been reported that the Batch printer no longer correctly prints the selected files, which is a bit alarming, however as this is a recent development it may relate to a Windows or Office update and so I have modified the code to overcome the issue.
Sunday 30th April 2017
Fixed a minor issue in the List Variables etc editor and added another version of the editor which includes access to Content Controls. This is not included as a replacement for the former, although it will perform the basic role of the other, but as a supplement to it. Both versions are in the zip file so you may choose which is more suited to your use ... or install both.
Friday 28th April 2017
Fixed a minor issue with the Many to One add-in and completed a new Session Load Add-ins from File add-in to facilitate the temporary loading of one or more global templates from a number of folders, for the current session, or unless released.
Thursday 6th April 2017
A user reported an issue with the Many to One add-in when merging into a protected form. This has been addressed.
Sunday 2nd April
In response to a Word forum request I have produced a simple add-in for the insertion of mail merge fields which keeps the dialog open between insertions, while allowing the user to move the insertion position in the document.
Saturday 1st April 2017
Updated the Print to PDFCreator add-in to allow the printing of unsaved documents.
Thursday 30th March 2017
The Many to One add-in continues to throw up the odd anomaly, that I have been unable to reproduce. However I have made some small modifications to try and address the latest issue.
Monday 27th March 2017
Discovered and fixed a minor, but potentially annoying bug in the version 1.3 of Print to PDFCreator I uploaded yesterday.
VBA programmers will know that the Duplex options of Duplex Printers are not exposed to VBA. This has proved a pain, with no end of oddball suggestions to work around it. There is a solution and it is the PrinterDuplex.DLL from https://www.EXCELGAARD.dk/Lib/PrinterDuplex/ which provides the missing link. A useful piece of programming that I am sure many of us can find a use for.
Sunday 26th March 2017
Prompted by a forum post by someone who wanted to save documents as TIFF format, I have updated the PDFCreator add-in to produce the other formats (including TIFF) that PDFCreator is capable of.
Thursday 23rd March 2017
Following on from the updates to several add-ins with regard to the use of the latest version of PDFCreator when available, I have completed an add-in for Word (2007 and later) to simplify the task of printing to the latest version of PDFCreator
Tuesday 14th March 2017
I'm still having problems with non English interfaces and Many to One. I am hoping that today's update has fixed the remaining issues relating to certain boolean values associated with the e-mail settings.
Monday,13th March 2017
Continuing the development of the four add-ins that employ functions to create PDF documents using PDF Creator 2.#.# I have added additional security options, thanks to some research by my old friend Greg Maxey and his desire to update the Batch processes add-in that we co-developed to add the ability to use the latest version of PDF Creator.
The following add-ins have now been updated to include the
updated dialogs and code:
Many To One;
Merge and Split:
Individual Merge
Letters; and the aforementioned
Batch processor.
Wednesday 7th March 2017
Due to ill health, and consequent long running medical treatment over the last few years, I have rather neglected the photo galleries, however I have started a gallery for 2017 and hope to remain well enough to keep it up now the treatment is finished.
Friday 3rd March 2017
For some time some of my mail merge add-ins have offered the ability to merge to PDF format files using PDFCreator when it is installed. I have continued to recommend the earlier version 1.7.3 until now, but thanks to urging by my old friend Greg Maxey and some suggested code sequences sufficient to get me interested in updating, I have now updated the add-ins to use the current version of PDFCreator.
Those add-ins are Individual Merge Letters, Merge and Split and Many to One. Do note that if you wish to continue to use the earlier version of the PDFCreator driver, do not update your installed add-ins as the PDF Creator options will no longer work with version PDFCreator 1.7.3 and earlier. In theory, if you have the older version and attempt to merge to PDF Creator with these updated versions, the error trapping should ensure that no PDFs should be produced.
Wednesday 1st March 2017
Updated the Merge and Split add-in to enable it to split documents that have previously been merged to a new document and the original merge document and data source are no longer available.
Tuesday 21st February 2017
The update of the 10th to the Many to One add-in appears to have introduced a Type 13 error relating to a missing registry entry on first running the updated version (because the update also clears the existing registry settings). I have now fixed the issue,
Wednesday 15th February 2017
Friday's update to the Individual Merge Letters add-in was a tad premature and may still not work correctly on non-English interfaces. I have updated the add-in to (hopefully) address the issue.
Monday 13th February 2017
Minor update to the Field Text Converter add-in to ensure that the text/field(s) to be converted are correctly selected.
Friday 10th February 2017
Updated the following add-ins to improve compatibility where the interface language is not English:
Photo Gallery, Many to One, Individual Merge Letters, Merge and Split, Envelopes and Labels
Monday 30th January 2017
Earlier this month I added code to add rows to tables in a protected form, using separate code for each form field type. I have now integrated the three macros which will thus work whatever type of form field is used.
Friday 27th January 2017
A user has pointed out that the e-mail function in the Invoice template does not e-mail the attachment. This is now fixed with an updated Outlook function.
Thursday 19th January 2017
Fixed another minor bug in the Many to One add-in.
Wednesday 11th January 2017
Added code to the macro code examples to add a row to a table in a protected form on exit from the last row.
Monday 26th December 2016
I noticed that my usual disclaimer was not displaying correctly in the Envelopes and Labels add-in, so I have taken the opportunity to address that.
Thursday 22nd December 2016
As if the recent Many To One add-in debacle couldn't get any more embarrassing, I have learned overnight that two of the dialogs don't display correctly when used in Word 2007/2010. 2013 and later are OK. I have rushed out a quick fix.
Wednesday 21st December 2016
Unfortunately the update I made to the Many to One add-in version 12.5 caused as many problems as it solved, so I have made extensive changes and those who had problems have tested the update which seems to have done the job. I strongly urge those who have downloaded 12.5 to update to the latest version.
I have updated the web page to reflect the changes.
Friday 9th December 2016
I have added a further minor modification to the Multi-Choice add-in to add a macro warning text to the documents it creates or modifies.
Wednesday 7th December 2016
I have been working on the Multi-Choice add-in I uploaded last week, to address a few minor anomalies, but especially to add major functionality to add the user interactive capability to questions and answers listed in an Excel workbook.
Users who have Outlook installed as part of Office, but who have not set it up, and prefer to use another e-mail application, have run into errors when using the Many to One add-in, which assumed that if Outlook was available, it would have been configured. I have therefore changed the validation to ensure that Outlook is the user's default e-mail application, by reading the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail before allowing e-mail functions.
Wednesday 30th November 2016
As the winter weather draws on, I have been working on an add-in to aid those users who produce multi-choice questions and answer documents, with the prime aim of making those documents user interactive on the PC.
The first draft of the Multi-Choice add-in is now available, but if users have any suggestions how it could be made more useful, I am willing to explore what is possible.
Thursday 24th November 2016
The MVPS.ORG web site, to which there are several references and links on this site, is about to be discounted. I have therefore reproduced a couple of the pages that are referenced here, so that there will be continuity until it becomes clear what will happen to the bulk of the material on that site.
Thursday 10th November 2016
User feedback identified a problem with the Many to One add-in with regard to the use of CC/BCC mail recipients. This has now been addressed.
Sunday 6th November 2016
I have found myself fielding questions about how to save e-mail messages from Outlook to Windows files on a number of occasions recently in various forums I subscribe to, so I thought it worth adding the method to this site.
Monday 1st November 2016
Created a new add-in to facilitate the addition, change or removal of Mergeformat and Charformat switches to Word fields that will accomodate such switches.
Tuesday 25th October 2016
Corrected a problem with the Many To One dialog that has managed to lose its ability to select the One to One option. I suspect due to a recent Microsoft update which has affected VBA userforms.
Monday 24th October 2016
Minor update for the Print an Envelope or Labels add-in, containing error trapping for an incompatible envelope template selection
Saturday 22nd October 2016
User feedback reported a couple of minor issues relating to the Photo Gallery add-in and its storage of configuration data. These have been addressed.
Wednesday 19th October 2016
Recent tests show that the Many to One process is converting switches associated with merge fields (switches may not be used on child fields) are being converted to all Lower case, which plays havoc with date fields. This has been addressed. Given that the add-in has been around for several years and this is the first time that this issue has come to light, suggests that it may have been affected by one of Microsoft's interminable updates. Whatever the reason, it is fixed ... for the moment.
Friday 14th October 2016
Made changes to the worksheet checking functions to allow the use of Worksheets other than Sheet1 and to allow the use of XLSM data sources with the Many to One add-in.
Wednesday 12th October 2016
Following user feedback on the Photo Gallery Template, that the process was failing after a recent security update, that affected the ability to save the variables stored in the template between uses, I decided to change the process to save the variables in the Registry instead. This version is now available to download if you are having trouble with file save errors related to the add-in.
Sunday 9th October 2016
Updated the Insert Future Date add-in to allow the date to be optionally inserted at a bookmarked location in the current document.
Saturday 8th October 2016
Updated the Envelope & Label add-in to incorporate improved Outlook addresses access; and to fix a couple of minor display anomalies in the configuration dialog, relating to the use of and Excel workbook to hold the address data.
Friday 7th October 2016
Following feedback from a user, I have addressed an issue with the Merge and Split add-in which was unable to handle different first page (or odd/even) headers or footers. I have addressed that and the updated version should be able to handle such header/footers correctly.
Thursday 6th October 2016
Following some discussion in Word forums on the topic of extracting label date for re-use as a mail merge data source, I decided to revisit my web page on the subject. As it had been some considerable time since I prepared that page, and things have moved on, I thought it a good idea to prepare a simple add-in, for those uncomfortable with macro programming, to automate the process of extracting label data to an Excel worksheet.
Wednesday 5th October 2016
Fixed a minor bug caused by an unfortunate typo in the revised Many to One add-in I uploaded on Saturday related to the use of CC copies of e-mails when merging to the body of an e-mail message.
Some users had also complained that the add-in affected the format of the document when merged to e-mail message bodies. This related to disparate style definitions between Outlook and the merge document. It too has been addressed.
Saturday 1st October 2016
In response to recent feedback from users, I have undertaken a major redesign of the Many to One mail merge add-in. To avoid frightening the horses, the user interface remains the same, but behind that, the e-mail function has been completely rebuilt and the reliability of the filtering system much improved.
Thursday 27th September 2016
In response to a user suggestion, I have modified Monday's add-in to send documents by e-mail to allow the user to elect the filename of the attachment, irrespective of the name of the original document.
Monday 26th September 2016
Updated the Insert Date and Future Date add-in to store an entered custom date format for re-use.
Added a new page featuring a simple add-in to aid the sending of documents by e-mail either as the message body or as an attachment.
Added a second new page featuring a simple add-in/template to automate mail merge from Outlook contacts to pre-prepared word documents
Wednesday 21st September 2016
Fixed another issue in the Many to One add-in filter module. This related to the use of data source workbooks that were not in XLSX format. Now temporary data sources will always be saved as xlsx format. In addition, I have reduced the length of the temporary folder path to reduce the possibility of SQL errors due to over-long data connection strings,
Friday 16th, September 2016
Fixed a significant bug in the Outlook Contacts to Excel add-in.
Friday 9th, September 2016
Fixed an error condition that could occur in some circumstances when using the Duplex Name Label add-in.
Wednesday 31st August 2016
Following user feedback I have extensively revised the filter section of the Many to One Mail Merge add-in.
Sunday 28th August 2016
Added an Excel version of the Save Reminder add-in, response to popular request. Like its Word counterpart, this add-in also integrates with the Excel version of the Save in Two Places add-in, where present.
The Excel version of Save in Two Places required a minor modification to enable that integration to take place.
Monday 8th August 2016
It has been brought to my attention that the Extract Data from Forms add-in crashes if there are more than 255 fields in the form. Until I decide how to address this, I have added code to warn the user and stop processing when presented with such a form. To date no-one has requested compatibility with such a large data set.
Thursday 21st July 2016
Updated the Extract Images from Word document add-in to also do the same for Excel workbooks and PowerPoint presentation.
Monday 18th July 2016
On Friday last I produced an error handler for field lengths in excess of 255 characters for the Extract Data from Forms add-in. After further development work, it appears that if a dummy row is added to the newly created worksheet with more than 255 characters in each cell, the subsequent field lengths are not curtailed. So I have updated the add-in and incorporated a procedure to add and hide the dummy row (it works just as well when hidden) to enable field lengths longer than 255 characters to be accommodated.
Sunday 17th July 2016
Error trapped duplicated file names when importing Excel data into the Address Book add-in
Friday 15th, July 2016
It has been noted that where a field contains more than 255 characters, the Extract Data From Forms process crashes. This error has been trapped.
Updated the Envelope and Labels add-in to allow the use of Access data sources,
Saturday 9th July 2016
Fixed a minor bug in the Extract Data from Forms, tagging utiity.
Thursday 7th July 2016
My Many to One add-in has been problematic for some users, when used with Exchange Server e-mail accounts in Outlook. This relates to the way the accounts are configured. However, the differences fall into two camps and previously I have addressed this, by offering those users who have problems, with a modified version.
I have now incorporated the changes from the alternative version in the same add-in as the original, selectable via a check box that is available on the userform when the Exchange Server option is selected.
Wednesday 6th July 2016
After many hours of work, by my friend and frequent collaborator Greg Maxey and myself, over the past few weeks, I have pleasure in presenting a significant update (Version 3.0) to the Extract Data from Forms add-in.
The update includes the addition of some new and useful processes. Greg will be soon making his own version of the add-in available, with a different set of emphases, and presentation, but essentially similar core functionality.
Wednesday 8th June 2016
The BrowseForFile function on the Useful VBA Functions page was incorrectly duplicating the BrowseForFolder function - now fixed.
Sunday 29th May 2016
Created a template to record telephone messages that will work in conjunction with the add-in to extract data from e-mail messages.
Tuesday 25th May 2016
Updated the Merge and Split add-in top change the method of saving to PDF, and changed the web page to include updated links to PDF Creator.
Updated those same links on the Individual Merge Letters page also.
Thursday 12th May 2016
A user recently asked whether my Invoice template was compatible with Word 2016. Although the web page indicated it was for 2007 and 2010 versions, it should have worked with all later versions also. However, I thought it time to revamp the code and update it to use my standard colour scheme. That proved rather more time consuming than I had anticipated, but it all now appears to work as intended.
Monday 9th May 2016
A user asked, not unreasonably, how to reset the messages processed by the Extract Data from Outlook Messages add-in, which I hadn't allowed for, so I have added a function to the add-in to address the omission.
Thursday 5th May 2016
Made a small modification to the error handling on the Extract Images from Document add-in.
Saturday 30th April 2016
Updated the Individual Merge letters page and add-in to clarify that it works also with Word 2016.
The following add-ins address paragraph styles by names that may not be available in non-English versions of Word, so I have updated them to use their numeric equivalents, which are universally applicable.
Tuesday 26th April 2016
Updated the Outlook Envelope & Label Printer code
Wednesday 20th April 2016
Updated the Photo gallery add-in to improve the messaging and error handling
Sunday 17th April 2016
Corrected an issue with the Batch processes add-in which caused the batch process to skip required files when the sub folder option was unchecked.
Monday 11th April 2016
Updated the Outlook Travel Time function to take advantage of Google Maps ability to calculate travel time between locations.
Updated the code in the add-in to Associate a printer with a document.
Friday 8th, April 2016
Some business users of the Many to One add-in using Exchange Server e-mail accounts have complained that in some circumstances the add-in had problems with quotes around the recipient e-mail addresses (which in any case should have been removed during the sending process) so I have removed them entirely.
If you are not having problems with quotes around e-mail addresses, there is no need to update from 11.2 to 11.3 at this time, as this is the only change.
Sunday 3rd, April 2016
Updated the Open Documents from List add-in to include the latest code revisions, developed from user feedback on all my add-ins.
Monday 28th March 2016
Users in networked environments have occasionally complained that the Many to One add-in was unable to create the temporary files required to use the record filter. This seems to relate to write permissions on company networks. I have therefore changed the way the temporary files are created to always use the local user's temp folder, which always has write access. This has meant an extensive re-write of several parts of the code to make the use of the filter more reliable. Temporary files created by the add-in are removed after use.
Saturday 26th March 2016
Fixed a bug in the Extract Data from Forms add-in that as preventing it from creating a new Excel data file.
My old friend Greg Maxey suggested a minor modification to the CreateFolders macro I posted earlier this week, which I have adopted.
Friday 25th, March 2016
The Extract Images from Document add-in will produce an error if the document to be processed is open in Word. I have therefore added an error trap for this to provide the user with the opportunity to save changes and close the document.
While reviewing some of my code, I noticed that the Envelope and Labels add-in would crash if there was no data in the chosen Excel data file and that the initial letter filter was not working as a line of code had gone walkabout between versions. Both are now fixed.
Thursday 24th March 2016
For some time now I have had users occasionally reporting errors when running my Individual Merge Letters add-in and my Merge and Split add-in, which I had not been able to reproduce and which because of confidentiality issues, clients had not been able to share the errant documents to enable me to track down the cause of the problem.
Now a user has produced such a document and data for evaluation and the problem related to locked content controls which the process as it stood couldn't delete. This has now been addressed in both add-ins, so hopefully the problem will not re-occur.
Tuesday 22nd March 2016
Updated the CreateFolders function to accommodate UNC network paths, and added this function to the Individual Merge Letters add-in, which employs it.
Sunday 20th March 2016
Documented a process with example code for the automatic extraction of files from zipped files attached to Outlook e-mails
Wednesday 16th March 2016
Made some small changes to the Many to One add-in dialog to clarify the functionality of the filtering system and to make the '#' check in the data file optional. (Use of the # character in the data source can sometimes affect the output).
Tuesday 15th March 2016
After failing to find an decent reference to explain how to make a self certificate work to sign a VBA project in Outlook, I decided to document the process in a new web page.
Monday 14th March 2016
I noticed that a line of code in the SQL macro at Word VBA Examples was not rendered on the web page. I have fixed this.
Updated the Many to One add-in to encompass some changes to address minor issues raised by users recently, with the aim of further improving reliability.
Monday 22nd February 2016
Thanks to my old friend Greg Maxey, who pointed out that my Column Test add-in produced the field list document in alphabetical order and not the order in which the fields appear, which is required in order to achieve the desired aim, I have updated the add-in to correct this anomaly. I have also incorporated a small modification he suggested to overcome a display issue.
Monday 15th February 2016
This morning, while updating the Formatting Word Fields page, I discovered that the code I used to copy fields to the clipboard was not working correctly. MVP colleagues were not having the same problem, though research suggests the issue has surfaced from time to time. I therefore found it necessary to use an alternative method of writing to the clipboard and that has been included in the add-in at Export Fields
Tuesday 9th February 2016
Added an option to remove empty paragraphs to the numbers on labels add-in.
Sunday 31st January 2016
The information on the Extract Images from Word Documents web page was now rather dated, so I have removed the old irrelevant information and supplemented the remainder with a new add-in to automate the process of extracting embedded images from a document in DOCX or DOCM format.
I have added a new VBA function 'FolderNameUnique' to the Useful VBA functions page to facilitate the naming of folders from VBA, when those folder names exist, to avoid conflicts.
As Microsoft have returned to using Title Case for ribbon tab titles in Word 2016, I have made a small modification to the Insert Documents (Boiler) add-in to ensure that Upper Case titles are used only for Word 2013.
Saturday 30th January 2016
Under some circumstances the Chart Merge add-in would fail. I have added some further code to clear the clipboard between each record and added a user warning to the Progress indicator, to minimise the problem.
Saturday 16th January 2016
Bug fix update to Word Document Batch Processes add-in
Sunday 10th January 2016
A user from Turkey pointed out that the Batch Print add-in does not work correctly with filenames that have Turkish characters. I have therefore changed the way that the process reads the files to correct this issue.
Thursday 7th January 2016
Tuesday's update to the Individual Merge Letters add-in didn't go as well as planned, and produced some strange anomalies especially when creating PDF files with the Adobe Acrobat driver. I have therefore re-written the whole of the PDF creation section to hopefully have it working now as intended.
I also took the opportunity to update the Merge and Split add-in, which performs a similar role but uses a completely different approach, to ensure that when the delete documents option was selected, the creation of PDF files was not compromised when there were existing files of the same names in the target folder.
Both add-ins should now cope with existing files without overwriting those existing files..
Wednesday 6th January 2016
I have updated the Userform multicolumn list and combo box column assignment add-in to improve compatibility with Office 2016 and to improve the error handling. The add-in now includes the latest versions of all my usual code modules and the reset button promised on the web page but not actually realised in practice..
Tuesday 5th January 2016
When using the Individual Merge Letters add-in to create PDF files, and the Delete Documents option was selected, if the PDF filename already existed in the target folder, that file was overwritten. For most users this was not a problem as the filenames were likely to be unique, but it was an anomaly that needed to be addressed.
Now if that option is selected, the document names are recorded during the PDF creation process and are deleted as a batch at the end of the run, thus ensuring that PDF names that match existing names are appended with an incrementing number and not overwritten.
Saturday 2nd January 2016
The first update of the new year is to the Scan into Word macro, which has been simplified and the URL renamed to avoid confusion.
Wednesday 30th December 2015
In response to a user request, the Document Converter add-in has been updated for Word 64-bit compatibility.
Sunday 6th December 2015
In response to user feedback I have made some minor changes to the Word Address Book add-in, (to improve compatibility with 10 digit ZIP codes for American users) and the Save Numbered Versions add-in, to correct an issue introduced in the last update that prevented the sequence number from being changed.
Thursday 26th November 2015
In some systems running Word 2013 or 2016 (though not 2010 or 2007) the Print an Envelope or Label add-in would crash when selecting names by initial letter, when the letter selected had no results. I have updated the add-in to overcome this issue, and to correct the fact that one of the letters was not linked.
Tuesday 10th November 2015
In response to user feedback the Insert Documents (Boiler) add-in has been updated to include my latest code functions, compatibility with the 64-bit version of Word and to add two further functions which allow each added document to be placed, not only on a new page, but on a new odd or even page.
Monday 9th November 2015
Added a macro listing to the Many to One add-in page to assist with Excel formatting for use with the add-in; and a note of explanation concerning a possible error condition when employing DDE to connect to the data when using the Individual Merge Letters add-in.
It was reported that the Individual Merge Letters add-in was unable to merge graphic images. This has been addressed with an updated version that allows the individual images to be retained when the document is split. This issue was not present in the Merge and Split add-in.
In response to popular request I have added an option to enable the Save to Two Places add-in to overwrite backup files with the same name. (The default is to preserve existing backups).
I took the opportunity to develop a Save to Two Places add-in for Excel also. This is essentially the same as the Word version, except that as Excel does not feature document variables, the configuration data is stored in the workbook in a normally hidden worksheet.
Monday 2nd November 2015
Fixed the link in the
Perpetual Calendar add-in that was pointing to the wrong
file.
Friday 16th, October 2015
In some circumstances the Extract data from Forms add-in does not correctly record the data extracted as the next row of the table is not correctly identified. This has now been fixed.
Sunday 4th October 2015
Updated the Save Reminder add-in to ignore read-only files.
Thursday 1st October 2015
In response to user requests, I have added options to both the Individual Merge Letters add-in and the Merge and Split add-in, to delete the document files created as part of the process, when PDF files only are required.
Sunday 27th September 2015
A user reported that the Chart Merge add-in displayed an error if merge fields not used for chart data were empty. This has been corrected. Empty fields now display a space character.
Thursday 17th September 2015
Added a further function 'ImageToBM' to the Useful VBA Functions page, to facilitate the insertion of named images at bookmarked locations.
Sunday 13th September 2015
Created the add-in Save Record and Close Documents as a companion add-in for Open Documents from List, to enable a user to easily save the currently open documents and close Word, and have those documents re-opened when Word is next used.
Wednesday 9th September 2015
Fixed an incorrect link on the Works Document Batch Converter Page
Tuesday 8th September 2015
Updated the custom recent files list editor to trap Office 2013 use. Office 2013 does not use recent file lists in the same way as 2007 or 2010.
Monday 7th September 2015
Included some additional error correction in the Save in Two Places add-in
Monday 31st August 2015
Back on the 10th of the month I posted an update to the Many To One add-in to address a recipient name issue that was affecting some users with Microsoft Exchange e-mail accounts. Since then some users without exchange accounts have reported the updated version was causing them problems related to recipient names.
After much head scratching I have come up with a version that combines the modifications, separately switched for Exchange users. It works without problems here and to date none of the exchange users who previously complained of problems, to whom I sent it, have reported a problem with the further revised version, so with fingers crossed, I am making it available to download as version 5.8.
Thursday 27th August 2015
A user pointed out that version 1.2 of the Bookmarks and Variables etc Editor was shown as modeless on the web page, but in fact wasn't it practice. This was an oversight on my part and was corrected in version 1.3, but before I could update the version on the site, the same user suggested that it would be useful if double clicking a selected item could insert a cross reference to that item, so I have also implemented that for version 1.4, which is the version now available for download. I have also removed some of the installation complexity of the earlier version.
Saturday 22nd August 2015
Friend and frequent collaborator Greg Maxey, spotted a potential issue in my CleanFileName function code, used to remove illegal filename characters from filenames derived from other VBA processes. It should not affect any user who includes the extension when using the function, but the update fixes it.
Similar code is used in the Individual Merge Letters add-in and the Merge and Split add-in, so I have corrected the code there also.
Given the number of updates, to the former add-in particular, over the years, this is not exactly a troublesome issue, but that is no excuse for not addressing it.
Sunday 16th August 2015
A user reported that the code to add a row to a table in a protected form (alternative method) did not work correctly when there were multiple tables with form fields. This related to the field naming used by the macro and has been corrected to include the table number which eliminates the problem.
Monday 10th August 2015
Minor update to the Many to One add-in, to fix an issue that affected some Exchange e-mail account users.
Tuesday 28th July 2015
European Union bureaucracy now requires a warning about the use of cookies. Cookies are used on this site in association with the advertising provided by Google, so I have added a pop up message to comply with the legislation.
Monday 27th July 2015
A user reported a serious bug in the updated version of the Chart Merge add-in, which caused it to merge only a small subset of the available records. This is now fixed.
Sunday 19th July 2015
Minor update to an error trap of the Field Text Converter to improve the messaging and make it clearer to the user why the error occurs and how to address it.
Wednesday 15th July 2015
Created a new add-in to insert future (or past) dates calculated from a user supplied date.
Saturday 4th July 2015
An American user reported that the address book add-in would better serve American users if the State list used the state abbreviations rather than the State names, so I have changed it accordingly.
Friday 3rd, July 2015
A user reported that with very large data sets the Individual Merge Letters add-in would crash before the set was completed, when merging to the Adobe Acrobat driver. This appeared to be related to buffer limitations, so I have modified it to not 'print' as a background task. The change allows the large merge to complete.
In theory this should apply to PDF Creator equally, where it is employed, so I have included the same modification for that version.
Minor update to the Print Envelopes and Labels add-in to use an alternative method to establish if Outlook is present.
Wednesday 1st July 2015
Fixed minor bug in the Custom Dictionaries add-in
Tuesday 30th June 2015
Addressed a minor anomaly that can prevent Merge and Split from working in very rare circumstances, and have forced the user to save the merge document so that it may be used as a template for the split documents..
Monday 29th June 2015
Created a new add-in to help manage personal proofing and exclude dictionaries.
Created an Outlook function to add travel times to meetings and appointments in the Outlook calendar.
Wednesday 24th June 2015
Updated the Envelopes and Labels add-in and the Extract Data from Forms add-in to improve 64-bit Office compatibility.
Thursday 18th June 2015
In response to a user suggestion I have added a check box to the Save Reminder add-in options dialog to allow the add-in to Save in Two Places when the Save in Two Places add-in is also installed.
Updated the Save in Two Places add-in for compatibility with the 64-bit version of Word.
Updated the Create Numbered Labels add-in for compatibility with the 64-bit version of Word.
Tuesday 16th June 2015
Still working with the Many to One and Chart Merge add-ins, which share some code relating to the sending of messages, I have fixed a minor issue whereby the Send Messages option of either would send outstanding messages of both add-ins. Clearly there will be circumstances where this is undesirable so now each sends only its own messages.
Sunday 14th June 2015
Some might say that the 13th would not be the most auspicious day to update add-ins, and in this case they could have been right, for the error trapping added yesterday to the Many to One add-in has proved not entirely successful, so I have modified it and added more user messages to indicate the nature of the problem, when it occurs, and I have added the facility to include the default signature associated with the chosen sending account when merging to the message bodies.
The same error trapping has been added to the Chart Merge add-in which uses a similar process to send messages.
Saturday 13th June 2015
A user reported that the Many To One add-in would under some circumstances not send some of the messages created to the Outbox. Using his data, I was able to reproduce the issue and correct the problem. Before I was able to upload the file, a second user reported an issue whereby the function in that add-in, to detect whether Outlook was available, was falsely reporting the presence of Outlook on one of his PCs. I have therefore adopted a different method of detecting Outlook and added that also.
The Chart Merge add-in I updated yesterday uses the same e-mail process as Many to One, so in theory is subject to the same issue as outlined above. I have therefore added the correction to the Chart Merge add-in also.
Friday 12th, June 2015
Following feedback from a user, I have added more error correction to the chart merge add-in to handle some anomalies that may be found in an untypical data source that would otherwise cause the add-in to produce error messages rather than merged data. These relate to empty columns, missing headers, duplicated field names, illegal field name characters and over-long field names.
Tuesday 9th June 2015
Added a page of my most useful VBA functions to use in your projects.
Monday 8th June 2016
I have found myself becoming increasingly interested in users' VBA programming for Outlook dilemmas, to which end I have created two additional web pages which provide code examples for automatically Adding Reference Numbers to Outgoing e-mail messages as they are sent, and recording those numbers with the message details in an Excel log. This employs a number of standard functions which can be used in other processes ... including Copying Tables from Outlook Message bodies to Excel workbooks, which is the subject of the second of the two new pages.
Sunday 7th June 2016
While documenting the changes to the web page associated with the chart merge add-in I uploaded yesterday it became apparent that it would be a simple matter to error trap the use of worksheet names with spaces, that preclude their use as Word bookmark names, and to error trap the missing but required empty paragraph when the charts are merged into frames. I didn't have time yesterday to rectify these omissions, so I have now updated the add-in to include both. I also added a warning relating to the use of frames when merging to the body of an e-mail message.
Saturday 6th June 2015
Prompted by a user who commented that the chart merge add-in would only allow the merging of a single chart, and wondered whether it could be modified to allow more than one chart, I agonised over how best to achieve this, and came up with a process that would allow a variable number of charts based on named ranges from the same data record with separate worksheets for each required chart.
The add-in has been updated, along with revised example documents and the web page modified to accommodate the changes.
Tuesday 2nd June 2015
I have retired the old add-in to create merge data sources for duplex postcard merges and have modified the add-in to facilitate the creation of duplexed Avery™ Name Labels to encompass the important parts of the old add-in, plus updating them to use Excel data.
Sunday 31st May 2015
Windows 8 users have been complaining about Microsoft Works converters not working in that version, so I have updated the download file to include filters for all Works versions. Time will tell whether this is a solution.
Saturday 30th May 2015
Modified the guide to installing macros from listings, to clarify that the process applies to all Word versions including 2013.
Updated the Duplex Data for Postcards add-in to fix a few niggling bugs and add a progress indicator.
Friday 29th, May 2015
Created a new add-in to facilitate the creation of duplexed Avery™ Name Labels using mail merge from an Excel data source.
Tuesday 5th May 2015
Updated the Create a Userform page to include additional codes samples.
Sunday 3rd, May 2015
In response to an interesting problem in a VBA forum, I have produced a new web page to demonstrate a way of adding hyperlinks to footnote and endnote texts.
Saturday 11th April 2015
Updated yesterday's web page concerning moving recurring appointments to weekdays when they fall at the weekend, to use an ADO function to update the log, which is rather more elegant and much faster than running Excel to do so.
Friday 10th, April 2015
Inspired by a forum question about moving recurring appointments to weekdays when they fall at the weekend, I have come up with a process to work around Outlook's limitations.
Wednesday 8th April 2015
The popular Many to One mail merge add-in has been somewhat blighted by the requirement to use the MSCOMCT2,OCX object library, to provide a date picker control on one of the user forms. The use of this object library precludes the use of the add-in with the 64-bit version of Office. I have therefore redesigned the add-in to remove the requirement to use this object library, and (hopefully) provide 64-bit compatibility. I have managed the former, as for the latter, we shall see as users attempt to try it in the Office 64-bit version.
The code changes were extensive, so as with any major update the chances are that fixing one issue may have broken another. I have tested areas of code where the changes have been made, but it is impossible to cater for all eventualities, so if you have a problem, please feed it back.
The Chart Merge add-in uses one of the code sequences that was problematical for Many to One, so I have also updated the Chart Merge add-in.
Unrelated to the above object library issue, a Dutch user reported that Merge and Split could not find the merged document and the process could not complete. This probably related to language variations, rather than the fact that he was using the 64-bit version of Office. I have therefore included an additional check to provide user selection in the rare circumstances where the document cannot readily be identified.
Wednesday 1st April 2015
On a couple of occasions recently in Office forums users have asked how to easily select the Outlook account from which messages are sent. This is tedious to explain in a forum environment, so I have created a web page to cover the process.
Tuesday 31st March 2015
Modifies the Document Batch Processor to overcome a potential problem when used with older document formats.
Sunday 29th March 2015
Made a small modification to the Individual Merge Letters add-in and the Merge and Split add-in to prevent some of field types from being unlinked during the merge, to allow, for example, the use of page numbering in the individual letters.
Friday 27th, March 2015
Added a further example macro to the automatic number documents page to increment a number each time a document is opened.
Thursday 19th March 2015
During recent updates to the Individual Merge Letters and Merge and Split add-ins I inadvertently introduced an issue that caused Hyperlinks to be lost during the merge. That has now been fixed.
Saturday 14th March 2015
Following some work done for a private client on the Many to One add-in, I have added the facility to set the message sensitivity options, fixed a minor bug and made some detail changes to the main code.
I also included the setup instructions for the required OCX file in PDF format, with illustrations, as this had been causing problems for some users.
The latest version is now 10.0. Version 9.9 was not released to the site.
Friday 6th, March 2015
It has been a while since I looked at the VBA examples pages, so today I did so and updated all the macros and where necessary improved error handling.
Wednesday 4th March 2015
Fixed a bug in the file naming process of the Merge Charts add-in, that caused the process to fail under some circumstances.
Thursday 19th February 2015
Removed the redundant Templates check box from the Word Batch Processes add-in and fixed a minor anomaly in the document save functionality.
Friday 13th, February 2015
Lucky for some, I have addressed an issue in both the Splitmerge add-in and the Merge and Split add-in (the Many to One add-in uses a different process and thus didn't require modification) to improve the handling of merged graphics.
Created a new page featuring a merge to both sides of postcards process.
Tuesday 10th February 2015
Fixed a potential issue with document saving when using the batch processing add-in.
Sunday 8th February 2015
My old friend Greg Maxey spotted a potential (though perhaps obscure) problem in the autotext entry backup process. This has been fixed.
Saturday 7th February 2015
Developed from a process I produced for a private client, I have created a process to enable the autotext entries stored in the Word normal template to be backed up and restored.
Sunday 1st February 2015
A user has pointed out an anomaly relating to how the instruction text in the Document Batch Processor displays incorrectly. This was because the text, prepared in Word 2013 does not translate to Word 2010 correctly and at some point before publication the on-line version had been saved in 2010, fixing the display with the 'missing' text. I have addressed that in version 2.5.
The operation of the add-in is not changed, only the text viewable if you open the template in Word.
Monday 26th January 2015
Fixed a minor bug in the Bookmarks and Variables etc. Add-in.
Sunday 25th January 2015
Addressed a potential bug in the envelope and labels add-in
Wednesday 21st January 2015
And just when I thought I had resolved the problems with the
Save Numbered Versions add-in, a user reported another issue
when changing Draft to Final
. Now fixed.
Tuesday 20th January 2015
The version of the Save Numbered Versions add-in I withdrew on Sunday has now been extensively re-written, and hopefully this time it will work reliably. To avoid confusion with the defective version 3.3 that some users may have downloaded, the repaired version is 3.4.
Sunday 18th January 2015
Temporarily withdrew version 3.3 of the Save Numbered Versions add-in, because of persistent errors that need to be resolved. Reverted to version 3.2 which does not have the same reliability issues
Saturday 17th January 2015
Some further error handling added to the Individual Merge Letters add-in and an additional option to allow the overwriting of existing files (2007+ version only).
In response to a user suggestion, I have added a field to the file rename dialog of the Save Numbered Versions add-in to enable the core filename to be altered in addition to the supplementary filename parts.
Monday 5th January 2015
As it is calendar season, I thought I would make the Excel data process of the Perpetual Calendar add-in work with single month calendars as well as year calendars.
Friday 26th, December 2014
After testing the 'Birthdays' addition to the Perpetual Calendar add-in over the holiday I have decided to change it to use an Excel worksheet rather than a Word table, for the sole reason that it is much faster when working with lots of data. This required the addition of a userform to allow the selection of the worksheet.
Tuesday 23rd, December 2014
Updated the Optionally Print Letterhead page to include an alternative technique which is perhaps easier to use than the method previously suggested.
Monday 22nd December 2014
Added a progress bar to the Birthdays module of the Perpetual Calendar add-in and included a demo Birthdays file (of US Vice Presidents) for testing.
Sunday 21st December 2014
Year end is fast approaching so I thought I would update my Perpetual Calendar add-in and provide an additional function to include text entries from dates entered in a Word table.
Tuesday 16th December 2014
Updated the Many to One add-in to correct an erroneous Help message link, pointed out by a user, and to add a function to allow messages to be sent in batches to help overcome ISP messaging limits. I also included some further error trapping for messages, in the temporary draft folder, with invalid e-mail addresses. Such messages are now ignored by the process, eliminating the prevention of the remaining messages from being sent.
Sunday 14th December 2014
Minor updates to Mail Merge with Charts add-in and Merge Charts Part 2 add-in to clear the registry settings when the data source is changed and thus avoid a potential error.
Thursday 11th December 2014
While creating the Mail
Merge with Charts add-in, published last week, it occurred
to me that some users may wish to merge charts relating to
several records into a single document. I looked briefly at
incorporating the process into the earlier add-in, but then
decided it would be better to separate the two - if only to save
me a lot of unnecessary work.
The new and complementary Merge Charts Part 2 add-in creates a single document which may be used as the basis of a further merge process.
As there is some potential for conflict when working on the same document in the same session with the two add-ins I have updated the error correction in the original add-in.
Thursday 4th December 2014
With what is undoubtedly my last major project of the year, I have finally completed a Mail Merge with Charts add-in to complement the various mail merge add-ins available from this site. The add-in is packaged with the demonstration files used for preparing the web page.
Saturday 22nd November 2014
I have updated the Insert Address (from the Address Book) add-in to match the style of the other add-ins on this site and to update some of the code.
Wednesday 19th November 2014
Fixed a minor bug in the Extract Outlook Data add-in which affected only Word 2007 users.
Saturday 15th November 2014
Addressed a potential issue in the Extract Outlook Data add-in that could result in transposed days and months when reading European format dates into an Excel worksheet. No-one has yet complained that this has been an issue, but the fix has jumped the gun on the potential for error.
Thursday 13th November 2014
Fixed a data validation bug in the extract data from forms add-in.
Sunday 9th November 2014
An incorrectly set switch in the code of yesterday's extract data from forms add-in version 2.3 resulted in a significant problem that caused Word to retain all the (hidden) files that had been processed when a batch of legacy forms were processed. This most undesirable state has been corrected in version 2.4.
Saturday 8th November 2014
In response to user feedback I have extensively modified the extract data from forms add-in. I have added process logging, and the option to select the worksheet in the chosen workbook. I have removed the options to save as text and Word format.
Tuesday 28th October 2014
Created a new Word add-in to produce bar coded labels for product identification etc., from data stored in an Excel worksheet. Sample labels are included as is an example Excel data file.
Made a small modification to the Extract Data from Forms add-in to ensure that extracted UK dates to Excel worksheets retain the UK date format.
Saturday 18th October 2014
Fixed a bug in the Document Batch Processes add-in that affected only Word 2007 users.
Wednesday 15th October 2014
Minor bug fix to Duplex Postcards add-in
Wednesday 8th October 2014
Following user feedback on yesterday's Insert Custom Comments add-in, I have made a few modifications to the way that the add-in works, to improve the user experience.
Tuesday 7th October 2014
Prompted by a question in a Word forum I created an easily configurable new add-in for the insertion of custom comments.
Sunday 5th October 2014
Friend and frequent collaborator Greg Maxey and I have been working on a Word add-in to extract e-mail message data from Outlook messages to Excel, Access or a Word table. That add-in is now also available from Greg's site.
The two versions are operationally similar, but there are differences in visual presentation to reflect our individual tastes.
Minor bug fixes to Photo Gallery add-in and to the Bookmarks and Variables editor
Tuesday 16th September 2014
A minor update to the Individual Merge Letters add-in to force the user to save the merge document before processing. It has been brought to my attention that some users find that an unsaved merge document causes an error when processing. This is because the merge document is used as a template for the individual documents and it can't do that if the merge document has not been saved..
Friday 12th, September 2014
Fixed a bug relating to an incompatible code sequence for Word 2010 and earlier in the Batch Processes add-in
Sunday 31st August 2014
Fixed an elusive bug in the Batch Processes add-in that affected error reporting.
Saturday 30th August 2014
Some refinements and enhancements to the Save in Two places add-in, primarily to ensure that documents are not overwritten by the backup process, when the name of the backup happens to coincide with the name of an existing file in the same folder.
Tuesday 26th August 2014
Fixing the bug in the Merge and Split add-in yesterday I thought it worth adding some visual indication for the document folder validation process. This doesn't affect the working of the add-in any material way, but enhances the appearance of the dialog.
Monday 25th August 2014
Fixed a bug in the Merge and Split add-in that caused the split documents to retain an attachment to the data source.
Wednesday 20th August 2014
The Document Batch Processes add-in has been further enhanced in a joint development with Greg Maxey to add built-in processes for the addition, changing and removal of password protection. The password related parts of the add-in have been completely revised.
Thursday 14th August 2014
Update to the Merge and Split add-in to allow it to be used with merge documents containing section breaks.
Thursday 7th August 2014
Minor bug fix to the photo gallery add-in, which would not retain the caption font size setting, and by request, the cursor now returns to the insertion point and not to the start of the document.
Monday 4th August 2014
Completed a major update to the Document Batch Processes add-in. This was a joint development with Greg Maxey.
Friday 1st, August 2014
Increasingly users are reporting that the Individual Merge Letters add-in baulks when faced with CSV data sources, so reluctantly I have blocked the use of CSV data, Where Excel cannot be used instead, use Merge and Split to process the document.
Monday 28th July 2014
Updated Saturday's new add-in and associated web page to include some password processing and a log of unprocessed documents.
Saturday 26th July 2014
Created a new add-in and associated web page to allow users to perform a variety of process on the current document or all the documents in a folder (and optionally any sub folders of that folder).
Wednesday 23rd, July 2014
There have been several updates to the Individual Merge Letters add-in over the last month and at some stage a serious error has crept in, that prevents the add-in writing the individual files correctly when the option to use the path stored in the data is used. Fortunately this is a little used option, or my mailbox would have been stuffed with complaints. However, one user spotted it and alerted me, so I have now fixed it.
Thursday 17th July 2014
Complete revision of the web page relating to the Variables etc editor, featuring a completely different and simpler approach. The original version of this editor is available from my friend and colleague, Greg Maxey's web site.
Minor update to the Many to One mail merge add-in.
Major update to the Merge and Split add-in, based on some work I did for a private client, which suggested a better way of naming the documents.
Minor update to the Individual Merge Letters add-in.
The three merge add-in updates all reflect an issue that affects Word 2013 users with PDF Creator. This is probably a very small number of potential users; However, it has been found that the PDF Creator print function, these add-ins share, is unreliable in Word 2013 and frequently causes Word to crash irrecoverably (without a reboot) so I have disabled the function in Word 2013, to prevent that from occurring. It may be possible to return to this function when I have researched the problem - perhaps after the forthcoming new release of the new version of PDF Creator, currently in Beta form.
Finally I have created a new page based on a message I answered (and appear destined to continue to answer) in an MSDN Office programming forum, to explain the process of extracting data from similar e-mail messages to Excel.
Sunday 13th July 2014
Whilst working on something else I noticed that the reset function of the add-in to Display Currency Values in Words was not working. This has now been rectified.
Friday 11th, July 2014
Fixed another minor display anomaly in the Many to One Merge add-in reported by a user, relating to the BCC option to send a copy of an e-mail merge to a third party.
Thursday 10th July 2014
A user asked if it would be possible to put the logo
alongside the return address of an envelope when using the
Print
Envelope & Labels add-in. This seemed a sensible suggestion and
I wondered why I had not done it before ...until I began to
program it.
However, I have
added an option to insert the logo in-line or wrapped. The logo
is always inserted in-line when there is no return address. A
wrapped logo will put the logo to the left of the return
address.
Wednesday 9th July 2014
While testing a process for a private client I spotted that under one particular combination of settings on the Filters dialog of the Many to One add-in, the opening dialog of the main userform of the Many to One add-in did not display correctly. As this could lead to confusion (though no-one has yet reported it) I have fixed the issue.
Minor updates to the Insert Filename add-in, including the addition of a reset button.
In response to a user request I have added plain text (TXT) document format to the range of output options of the Merge and Split add-in.
Monday 7th July 2014
Made some detail changes to the code of the Individual Merge Letters add-in to effect an improvement in behaviour when the 'Cancel' button is clicked.
Sunday 6th July 2014
When installing the PDF Creator security options in the Many to One add-in yesterday I forgot to update the module that detects the presence of the PDF Creator driver for compatibility with the 64-bit version of Word 2010/2013. That has now been rectified. If you installed version 9.1 yesterday and it is working for you in the 32 bit version of Word, there is no need to update to version 9.2.
Added the option to use PDF creator, where availiable, to the Merge and Split add-in, to match the capabilities of the other merge splitting utilities available from this site.
Minor bug fix to the Word Batch Printer add-in.
Saturday 5th July 2014
Recently, several users have reported that the Individual Merge Letters add-in fails with an error message when run in the 64-bit version of Word 2010/2013. This was due to the function used to detect whether the two PDF drivers were available having code that was incompatible with that version. That error has now been fixed, making the latest version (3.9) 64-bit compatible.
I also took the opportunity to enhance the PDF function, when used with PDFCreator to provide the PDF conversion, to enable PDF security measures to be added. See the web page for more details.
Updated the same module to list the available printers as used in the Individual Merge Letters add-in to make the Associate Printer add-in also 64-bit Word compatible.
Included the PDF Creator security measures in my Many to One add-in.
Wednesday 2nd July 2014
Fixed a minor bug in the Insert Documents add-in.
Monday 30th June 2014
Fixed a bug in the Many to One add-in that caused an error when merging to e-mail as PDF attachments.
Sunday 29th June 2014
Yesterday's update to the Open Documents from List add-in proved to have an issue whereby the last listed document would not open. I have modified the code to ensure that it does now open, and have taken the opportunity to respond to a user request and included an option to allow the listed document set to open with Word.
Saturday 28th June 2014
I thought it might be useful to add the option to add files to the Open Documents from List add-in from the filing system, as opposed to merely adding open documents (which function is retained).
Wednesday 25th June 2014
Created a new add-in to enable a batch of documents to be opened from a list, and to maintain that list.
Sunday 22nd June 2014
Removed some redundant code from the Print Envelopes or Labels add-in and fixed an issue with the dynamic userform logic that caused it to occasionally misbehave.
Saturday 21st June 2014
A question in a forum regarding the insertion of addresses into documents from Excel, made me wonder why I had not included this functionality in my Print Envelopes or Labels add-in. That is now rectified, though squeezing the option onto an already well filled userform was something of a trial.
Wednesday 11th June 2014
Bug fix and cosmetic update to the Number Documents add-in.
Monday 9th June 2014
Minor change to the Individual Merge Letters add-in uploaded yesterday.
Sunday 8th June 2014
Based on new processes for upgrades to several add-ins, notably the Merge and Split add-in, I have modified the Individual Merge Letters add-in to remove the need for the function that created a separate template for the merged documents. The process should now avoid the formatting anomalies that occasionally beset earlier versions.
Saturday 7th June 2014
Updated the Extract Data from Forms add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013, and changed the way a few of the processes are handled.
Friday 6th, June 2014
Changed the way the Merge and Split add-in creates new documents for improved compatibility particularly with landscape format merge documents.
Monday 2nd June 1014
Fixed a minor display anomaly in the Word address book add-in.
Sunday 1st June 2014
Fixed a minor bug in the Merge and Split add-in that affected only Word 2007 users.
Completed a major update to the Word address book add-in
Saturday 31st May 2014
When documents are merged to the body of an Outlook e-mail message using Word as the e-mail editor, which hitherto was the case with the Many To One add-in, it adds an unwanted small attachment to the message (not visible in the outbox, but present on the delivered messages, called 'header.htm'. This has been true since at least Word 2000, and not fixed.
Given the reasonable complaint from a user about this attachment, and the fact that it is also present when the merge is to attachments with a personalised covering message, allowed by the add-in, I have been working on an alternative approach to allow messages to be sent without this attachment. The result is something of a compromise as it was necessary to create new messages in Outlook and open and close each message to insert the formatted contents of the merged documents. As this produces on screen flashing and flashing can cause susceptible users to suffer seizures I have added a warning whenever this option is selected.
Wednesday 28th May 2014
Created an add-in version of the Convert Fields to Text and Convert Text to Fields macros
Monday 26th May 2014
Minor cosmetic update to the Associate a Printer with a document add-in.
Additional error correction and improved messaging to the Merge and Split add-in.
Sunday 25th May 2014
Updated the Merge Hyperlinks add-in to improve the error handling and the Word 2013 compatibility.
Updated the Userform List/Combo Box Column Values add-in to include improved error handling, and added an option to clear the variables that store the data used by the add-in.
Saturday 24th May 2014
Updated the Many to One add-in to include the file naming procedures developed for the Individual Merge Letters add-in updated on Thursday. This prevents the overwriting of similarly named files in the target folder.
Updated the Mail Merge Graphics add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013.
Thursday 22nd May 2014
For some time now, according to user comment, my popular Individual Merge Letters add-in has occasionally thrown a 5487 error warning. I knew it was related to file naming, but have never been able to repeat the issue until earlier this week when a user with this problem sent me a data file to check against a merge document. It immediately crashed with the 5487 error.
I soon established that the problem related to a line break in a field used for file naming. Clearly you cannot have line breaks in file names. Having established the problem, handling it proved far from simple, so I ended up re-writing the whole of the file naming section of the add-in.
Where a line is split the filename only uses the part before the (first) split. This can result in multiple files potentially with the same name, so that has also been re-addressed. Where filenames would be identical subsequent file names have an incrementing number appended to the name e.g. filename(1).docx, filename(2).docx etc,
Several other modifications were made to the messaging and appearance of the add-in for better compatibility with Word 2013.
Monday 19th May 2014
Yesterday's bug fix to the Many To One add-in set me to work updating the add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013. This is the most complex add-in available from the site and the dialogs are not only dynamically resized with context, but require slightly different settings for Word 2013. For some reason Microsoft could not manage consistency of size between userforms created from the earlier versions and those from Word 2013. I have been putting off making the changes for Many to One, but now I have brought it up to date.
If you spot any anomalies in the dialogs or the messaging that don't appear to make sense, please let me know using the contact link.
Sunday 18th May 2014
Fixed a bug, reported by a user, in the Merge to Protected Forms option of the Many to One Merge add-in.
Thursday 15th May 2014
Added a note, suggested by fellow MVP Jay Freedman to the Catchwords page, with reference to the influence of the active printer driver on the layout of the document and its effect on the process described.
Updated the Outlook Contact envelope and label printer code to use late binding to the Word object and thus avoid the need to add a reference to the Word object library, which had caused confusion for some users.
Tuesday 13th May 2014
Significant updates to the currency to text add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013, and for use in regions where the regional thousands separator and decimal point characters are reversed. i.e. whether your local thousands separator is a comma or a period, (or vice versa) the add-in should produce the correct selected result. The add-in also features a completely new interface.
This add-in is a parallel project with that of Greg Maxey whose version features on his own web site.
Monday 12th May 2014
Updated the Save in Two Places add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013 and to fix a minor bug.
Sunday 11th May 2014
Updated the Table of Contents add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013.
Friday 9th, May 2014
Updated, mainly cosmetic changes, to the Outlook Contacts to Excel add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013.
Tuesday 6th May 2014
Updated and improved the Insert Filename add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013.
Sunday 4th May 2014
Updated and improved the Duplex Postcards add-in for improved compatibility with Word 2013.
Saturday 3rd, May 2014
Updated the Batch converter for Word 97-2003 DOC etc add-in to include the option to delete the source files and provide compatibility for Word 2007.
Updated the Word Document Batch Printer add-in to fix a bug relating to a missing component.
Updated the Perpetual Calendar add-in to improve compatibility with Word 2013.
Friday 2nd, May 2014
The add-in to associate a document with a printer has been a tad flaky and so I have significantly updated it, to work with Word 2007 to 2013 (and while not tested it should also work with the 64-bit versions of 2010 and 2013).
Cosmetically updated the SaveReminder add-in with enhanced Word 2013 compatibility. Functionality remains as before.
Monday 28th April 2014
Updated the Insert a batch of files into a Word document (Boiler) add-in to improve functionality and to store the user settings in the template rather than the registry.
Sunday 27th April 2014
Added a filter by initials function to the Excel address list option in the Print an Envelope or Label add-in.
Updated the Word Document Batch Printer add-in to add functionality and to store the data in the template rather than the registry.
Saturday 26th April 2014
Fixed some display anomalies in the Print an Envelope or Label. Added a function to enable the logo and return addresses on labels to be aligned independently; and fixed a further bug in its Excel worksheet configuration.
Friday 25th, April 2014
Fixed a bug in the Print an Envelope or Label add-in.
Thursday 24th April 2014
Updated the Numbered Labels add-in to allow for multiple groups of labels displaying the same number.
Tuesday 22nd April 2014
The Easter holiday has been spent updating the Photo Gallery add-in to correct various anomalies relating to the use of Excel worksheets in particular. This should allow greater flexibility when using worksheets to provide the data for photo galleries.
Sunday 20th April 2014
Updated the hyperlinks merge add-in, to incorporate a second add-in that I had been working on. Whereas the hyperlink merge function is used before the merge. This companion function is intended for use on documents that have already been merged.
Friday 18th, April 2014
Created an add-in and explanatory web page to aid the insertion of Hyperlink fields from a mail merge data source to enable hyperlinks to be used with variable display texts or graphics.
Thursday 17th April 2014
A user reported an issue with the Boilerplate add-in when used with Word 2007, so I have fixed that and took the opportunity to update various modules used in the add-in.
Updated the Insert Currency Value as Text add-in to include some new features and its appearance to match the recent changes to other add-ins.
Tuesday 15th April 2014
Fellow MVP and contributor to this site, Paul Edstein, has reported that one of his correspondents had found a problem with an ancient macro posted on my web site. I have modified the macro following his suggestion and also modified a related macro.
Updated the Save Numbered Versions add-in to improve compatibility with Word 2013
Sunday 13th April 2014
Fixed a couple of niggling bugs in the Photo Gallery add-in template and modified the template to store its defaults in the template rather than in the registry. Cosmetic changes made to match recent changes to other add-ins.
Thursday 27th March 2014
Following an observation from a user, I have added to the fields that are unlinked when the Many to One merge process runs and included code to enable me to extend this feature should it cause problems for other users.
Wednesday 19th March 2014
Fixed a minor display issue in the Envelopes & Labels add-in.
Wednesday 12th March 2014
Updated the automatic numbering documents add-in to use document variables to store the settings, rather than the registry as with the earlier version. This allows multiple users who have access to the same template as an add-in to share the same numbering sequence.
In addition to this fundamental change I have included further error correction and updated the dialogs. The add-in is now compatible with Word 2013.
Monday 10th March 2014
Some cosmetic updates to the Mail Merge Graphics add-in to bring the add-in line with the more recent style used for add-ins provided from this site.
Sunday 9th March 2014
Made some primarily cosmetic changes to the older label numbering add-in, to ensure Word 2013 compatibility and to match dialogs to the more recent style used for add-ins provided from this site.
Wednesday 5th March 2014
Added the option to delay the sending of e-mail messages created by the Many to One Mail Merge add-in.
Tuesday 4th March 2014
Updated Sunday's Numbered Labels add-in to remove the requirement for a separate configuration process.
Included a new page featuring an add-in to split merge documents to separate files that are not currently catered for, with the two merge add-ins already available from the site. Merge and Split is ideally suited to merge documents CSV data sources and over 256 fields.
Sunday 2nd March 2014
In view of the problems created by Word 2013 for the Numbered Labels add-in I updated on Friday I decided to take a fresh approach and produced an alternative add-in to perform the task of producing Numbered Labels.
Friday 28th, February 2014
Fixed a bug that affected only Word 2013 users in the Numbered Labels add-in.
Thursday 27th February 2014
I created a project for my own personal use as an aid when programming Userforms with multi-column combo and list boxes with hidden columns. I thought that others may benefit from it so I have included it in a new page.
Tuesday 25th February 2014
Added further error handling to the Individual Merge Letters add-in. Where the filename field contains the path to save the document, the add-in now checks for the presence of that path and if not present will create any missing folder for each record. This option is not yet available for Sharepoint folders.
Saturday 22nd February 2014
Updated the folder selection procedure and the dialogs for the Save in Two Places add-in. Zip file now also includes an installer.
Saturday 15th February 2014
Updated the envelope templates to improve the macro code and provide versions for the latest Word versions.
Friday 7th February 2014
Updates to Paul Edstein's tutorial documents - Word Field Maths and Catalogue Mailmerge.
The Catalogue Mailmerge tutorial includes some content on the need to Finish the merge, plus some more examples of a two-key application of the field codes.
The Field Maths tutorial includes some content on internationalization issues and a couple more codes, including to spell out numbers.
Wednesday 29 January 2014
Fixed minor bug in the sequential label numbering add-in that prevented correct working in Word 2013.
Monday 23 December 2013
A user reported a bug in the Many to One add-in whereby if the last record was a key entry with no child records, the last record merge document was not correctly named and over-wrote the document associated with the previous record. Remarkably this had not been spotted before, but is now fixed.
Sunday 8th December 2013
A bug was reported in the Batch Print documents add-in where the stored folder was no longer available, resulting in a crash. This has now been trapped. I also took the opportunity to update the dialogs for use in Word 2013 and to add reset and help buttons to the ribbon.
Wednesday 4th December 2013
Updated the Print Envelope or Label add-in to trap a potential error when no address is selected from an Excel list, and improved the messaging relating to this condition.
Because there is potential for Word to crash when an address is selected from the Outlook address book, when Outlook is closed, I have added code to open Outlook if it is not already open when the option to select an address from Outlook is run. This slows the selection a tad, where Outlook had not been open, but this is preferable to Word crashing.
Wednesday 27th November 2013
Fixed a typo in the macro code to send a document as an e-mail attachment.
Tuesday 26th November 2013
Updated the Print Envelope or Label add-in to improve the behaviour with Excel data files. Added a reset option and improved the display for Word 2013 users.
Saturday 23rd November 2013
Fixed a major bug in the AddressBook add-in that prevented the importation of personal data from an Excel workbook that had caused me to withdraw the add-in. The revised version is now available to download.
Sunday 17th November 2013
Fixed a minor bug in the ribbon of the Photo Gallery add-in that affected Word 2007 users only. Only one user has reported the issue so I have retained the version number.
Monday 11th November 2013
The Insert Documents add-in (also known as the 'Boiler' add-in) has been updated to allow the storage and use of multiple document folders,
Saturday 9th November 2013
Fixed a bug in the Save Numbered Versions installer, which caused a path error and updated the 'readme' instruction document.
Friday 8th November 2013
Minor bug fixes in the Many to One Mail Merge add-in, and I took the opportunity to combine the 2010 and 2013 versions.
Sunday 3rd November 2013
The 'Boiler' add-in posted yesterday did not display correctly in Word 2013. This relates to changes in the measuring system used for userforms in that version, requiring additional coding to allow the forms to be used in both 2013 and earlier versions. I had overlooked this when updating the add-in. Now fixed. I also took the opportunity to remove the X in the top corner of the userform.
Saturday 2nd November 2013
The recent update to the 'Boiler' add-in under some circumstances produced an error. This has been fixed and I have added the ability to retain the last used folders and the choice of insertion on a new page.
Wednesday 23rd October 2013
Updated the 'Boiler' add-in to allow the use of file lists stored in Excel worksheets.
Tuesday 15th October 2013
Some users had reported an 'Error Code 13, Type Mismatch' error message when running the Many to One add-in. This has been traced to the recently added option to disable e-mail checking, where under certain conditions a registry entry was not created, leading to the error when that the add-in attempted to read that registry entry. This error has now been trapped.
Sunday 6th October 2013
Updated and improved the macro code for the Create a Fraction function.
Tuesday 1st October 2013
Added a note to the end of the Save Numbered Versions add-in page with respect to the use of the Date Picker control featured on the userform.
Monday 30th September 2013
Fixed a minor bug in the Many to One add-in that resulted in an unwanted system message concerning Outlook spell check where the default setting for spell check before sending messages was present in Outlook. The registry key is only present when the setting has been changed by the user, and code did not reflect this.
Sunday 15th September 2013
The introduction of Office 2013 has produced a few issues relating to the display of the userforms that front several of my add-ins. The most complex of these has been the Many To One merge add-in, which has a dynamic userform that changes in size and content according to options selected. The 2010 version worked in 2013, but the displays left much to be desired, so I have now reluctantly fixed that with a separate 2013 version of the add-in - resulting in twice the work when updates are needed.
While establishing the many measurements required to make the changes, I uncovered a minor anomaly in the display of the 2010 version, so I fixed this too. As the change is minor and no-one yet has been sufficiently disturbed by it to complain, I have retained version 7.8 as the number for both this and the 2013 version. Both versions are included in the download ZIP.
Saturday 14th September 2013
Plan B - I have reverted to version 1.7 of the Photo Gallery add-in. 1.8 needs more work to make it viable for 64-bit Word users.
Perhaps there's something in this Friday 13th business after all, because there was an error in the Individual Merge Letters add-in also.
Friday 13th September 2013
A superstitious person might baulk at uploading updates on Friday 13th, but I am, not so here goes:
I have updated the Word 2003 version of the Individual Merge Letters add-in to allow the use of PDFCreator to create PDF versions of the individual files, if available. PDFCreator, as those who have it will know is a public domain software tool that is programmable, lending itself readily to this application. (The Office 2007/2010 version already has this functionality).
I also made a small update to the Photo Gallery add-in, hopefully to make it compatible with the 64-bit version of Word, though I don't have that version available to check it thoroughly.
Monday 9th August 2013
While modifying the Many to One merge add-in for a private client, I used the opportunity to include some planned updates for this add-in, to improve reliability even further and to address occasional anomalies in the logic that displays the dynamic userform that is at the heart of the system. I also removed the crosses from the top right hand corner of most of the dialogs. These crosses were already disabled, and being redundant I thought they would be better removed.
The changes have reduced the compatibility with Word 2013, which may display some of the dialogs incorrectly, though it should still work correctly. There is no real answer to this as Word 2013 renders the dialogs differently from 2010/2007 and I am loath to produce (and more to the point, to maintain) a second version for Word 2013, but I may yet have to do so. I am still thinking about it.
Saturday 31st August 2013
Fixed an obscure bug in the Many to One add-in.
A new page to demonstrate how to create a non-printing button on a protected form.
Wednesday 28th August 2013
Updated the Photo Gallery Template add-in to include an option to load a list of images complete with caption texts from an Excel workbook,
Sunday 25th August 2013
I made some minor changes to the Many To One add-in application's messaging and a small modification to prevent the List Field selection clearing on changing tabbed pages. As the version was released for only a very short time and the changes minor, the version number remains the same as before i.e. Ver 7.5. If you downloaded Ver. 7.5 since yesterday please download to include the changes.
Saturday 24th August 2013
It has occasionally been requested that I include a function to filter the data used with the Many To One add-in. This proved rather more difficult than I had anticipated to optionally slot such a function into the add-in whilst retaining the error checking, and it has entailed a major revision of some parts of the code, in order to accommodate it, part of which was included in version 7.4 that I released on Thursday.
I also took the opportunity to include some further error checking to improve stability even further.
The add-in also includes a function to resolve an issue with phantom fields reported by Word Mail merge, which would cause the process to fail if allowed to proceed. Earlier versions simply reported the problem. This version will fix the issue.
Thursday 22nd August 2013
Added a function to the Many to One add-in to correct the phantom fields issue discussed on the web page. I also modified the (very slow) function to check for missing data for a much faster Excel function. Given that Excel is opened to check the data we might as well use its power where useful.
Wednesday 14th August 2013
Added error trapping for no document selected in the Recent Files List add-in
Sunday 11th August 2013
Added a new page featuring an add-in to load, manipulate and save recent file lists for re-use.
Friday 9th August 2013
Another obscure bug fixed in the Many To One add-in
Tuesday 6th August 2013
Recent changes to Many To One had allowed a bug to slip in that caused the application to crash when mail merging Many to One to the printer option. This has now been fixed ... hopefully without breaking anything else :)
Sunday 4th August 2013
Updated the Many To One merge add-in to include an option to use PDFCreator (where present) to create PDF files. I have changed the colouring of the dialogs to my new standard theme and have added some notes to the web page addressing the issue of blank fields in addresses creating blank lines in the finished documents.
Friday 2nd August 2013
Fixed another minor bug in
Extract Data from Forms
add-in that in some circumstances prevented an Excel data file
from being created and thus the add-in to hang. I also changed
the means of selecting the folder information from the Userform.
Made a small modification to the way the disclaimer is presented in the Individual Merge Letters add-in, and included a function to reset the registry entries used to store the user preferences.
Wednesday 24th July 2013
Fixed a minor bug in the Extract Data from Forms add-in which caused an issue where with certain forms using content controls the data was not saved..
Monday 8th July 2013
The method that restores an ability to scan directly into Word 2007 and 2010 does not work for Word 2013 - However, there is a workaround available for Word 2013 that I have added to the Scan into Word page.
Thursday 4th July 2013
In response to user feedback I have changed the Word document batch printer code to disable background printing (switchable from the userform) by default.
Tuesday 2nd July 2013
It appears that I forgot to include the example files
to the
Individual Merge Letters add-in to demonstrate the new
functions.
Sunday 30th June 2013
Added a progress indicator to the Individual Merge Letters add-in
Thursday 27nd June 2013
A user reported an obscure bug in the Many to One add-in that caused the individual filenames to lose their extensions when there was a full stop (period) in the optional filename prefix/suffix. This has now been addressed.
Saturday 22nd June 2013
Updated the Envelope and Labels add-in to work with multiple addresses and to integrate with an Excel worksheet for use as an address book.
Thursday 20th June 2013
The Many to One add-in for Word versions 2007 onwards has been enhanced to include an option to select a Return To e-mail address for all the e-mail merge options
The Individual Merge Letters add-in now includes an option to run a macro before the individual documents are saved.
Friday 31st May 2013
Reviewed and replaced sub headings in the What To Do When Word Crashes page, to remove some ambiguity.
Thursday 30th May 2013
Added a page describing a new add-in to simplify the process of adding graphics merge fields to a document. This is a companion page to Mail Merge Graphics which described the process of merging graphics in some depth, but which many lay users felt to be over complicated.
Saturday 18th May 2013
Added a page describing an add-in to aid the storage and insertion of boilerplate texts for use in a document.
Sunday 12th May 2013
Added a page describing an add-in to simplify the process of inserting the filename and path of a document into that document, a task some users seem to find difficult ... but hopefully for no longer!
Wednesday 1st May 2013
A user reported that on following advice on the 'What To Do When Word Crashes' page, essential data had been deleted. This appears to have been as a result of using the batch file described, without addressing the warning in the previous paragraph. This is the first time that such an issue has been reported in around ten years that the advice has been posted on my web site. To attempt to ensure that this doesn't occur again, I have used larger text in the warning message to make the potential dangers even more obvious.
Monday 29th April 2013
Paul Edstein has updated his catalog mail merge tutorial. The main improvements concern the handling of merges with two keys (e.g. to handle cities with the same names in different states) and the processing of email merges.
Tuesday 23rd April 2013
Corrected the count in the progress indicator of Many to One mail merge which was reading one more than it should, and revised the code relating to the merging of protected forms, which caused some problems when merging to e-mail as attachments.
Saturday 20th April 2013
Whilst developing an application for a private client, I required a routine to read Excel data into a Userform list box. I have further developed the routine I came up with to produce a stand-alone function that will fill any userform list box or combo box with data from a worksheet and have added the code to an existing page.
Monday 15th April 2013
A small number of users reported that the Many to One mail merge add-in would not work for them when used with the personalised covering message option. I have therefore re-worked that part of the code and the revised version appears to work for those users who previously had problems.
Sunday 14th April 2013
I have been experimenting with message forms, for my contacts page, and am torn between two versions, so you may see some changes to the contacts page over the next few days as I finalize my choice.
Wednesday 10th April 2013
Added an accompanying page to the simple userform tutorial page to demonstrate a method of populating a combo box with data from a Word table, and using that data to insert a graphic from the table into a document.
Monday 1st April 2013
Minor changes to the text of the instructions for enabling Word versions to run together on the same platform to reflect the use of Word 2013.
Thursday 28th March 2013
In response to a user suggestion I have added the options to set the priority of the messages and to request a delivery receipt in the Many to One mail merge add-in. I have also modified the progress indicator to give a more meaningful indication of progress.
Friday 22nd March 2013
Minor change to main dialog of the Many to One mail merge add-in to improve display compatibility between Word 2007/10 and Word 2013.
Saturday 9th March 2013
Additional error trapping in the Many to One mail merge add-in to trap the use of the # character in the data source, the presence of which will cause the process to fail.
Friday 8th March 2013
Fixed the Print Envelope or Label add-in dialogs to work with Word 2013 and included a dramatically simplified start label function (thanks to Greg Maxey) that hopefully will work with all label formats.
Thursday 7th March 2013
Fixed an obscure bug and updated the Individual Merge Letters add-in to accommodate Word 2013.
Updated the Save Reminder add-in to accommodate Word 2013.
Updated the Associate Printer add-in to accommodate Word 2013
Monday 4th March 2013
Word 2013 imposes some issues on the userforms employed in the add-ins on this web site and this has meant changing some of them slightly to correct display anomalies. First to be altered is the Many to One add-in. For Word 2007 and Word 2010 users the changes will be barely noticeable.
I have also significantly updated the save numbered version add-in to provide more control over file naming.
Thursday 28th February 2013
Introduced further error handling to the Many to One add-in to cover the situation where a data file has only one field. This would be inappropriate for many to one merges, but could be permissible in one to one merges.
Tuesday 26th February 2013
Added the option to convert RTF format to the Document Batch Converter add-in.
Sunday 24th February 2013
Included a minor modification to enable Word 2013 compatibility in the Document Batch Converter add-in
Friday 22nd February 2013
Paul Edstein has added an update to his Catalogue Mail Merge tutorial related to the handling of merges with two keys (e.g. to handle cities with the same names in different states) and the processing of email merges.
I have added a note to the Many to One add-in page to warn against using nested tables in the merge document used with this application.
Fixed a missing line break in the macro code relating to extracting data from similar documents.
Monday 11th February 2013
Greg Maxey has continued development work on the convert numbers to cash values add-in to follow directions I did not wish to pursue at this juncture, However, some of the benefits of that development work have been incorporated in the version of add-in on my site. If you want to see where Greg has taken the add-in, then see his web page on the topic.
Friday 8th February 2013
Minor change to the convert numbers to cash values add-in to handle invalid currency number formats.
Thursday 7th February 2013
Minor change to the layout dialog of the convert numbers to cash values add-in. Functionally the add-in remains the same.
Wednesday 6th February 2013
With my friend and long time collaborator Greg Maxey at a bit of a loose end this week, I gave him the code for the convert numbers to cash values to kick around. He came up with an ingenious means of providing user configuration for local currencies that I have adopted for version 2.
Saturday 2nd February 2013
Added a new page featuring a Word add-in to convert numbers to cash values in figures and text.
Thursday 10th January 2013
Doug has added a minor change to his calendar template.
Wednesday 9th January 2013
Sweltering in the unusually high temperatures of this year's Australian summer, Doug Robbins has been passing some time creating a neat calendar function that does not require the MSCAL.OCX object library that can be used in your projects. The calendar is available in template form and is linked from the Downloads page
Monday 31st December 2012
New Year's Eve, and I finish what has been a disappointing year with an addition to the Replace Using Wildcards page that I updated at the weekend. The replaced illustrations prompted my old friend Greg Maxey to suggest a macro to grab the value of the character at the cursor instead of messing around with calculators. This seems fair enough and I have now included such a macro, loosely based on his suggested code.
Sunday 30th December 2012
User reported a file path error message when the Many to One merge add-in was used to create a many to one merge to e-mail as a PDF attachment with a Word document as covering message body. This has been fixed in version 6.2.
Saturday 29th December 2012
I have updated the illustrations relating to the Windows calculator in the Replace Using Wildcards page to those from Windows 7, as the calculator format has changed.
Wednesday 26th December 2012
Yesterday I uploaded a modified version of my new Many to One mail merge add-in. While playing around with it today I felt that it might benefit from a few minor aesthetic changes to the opening page, to highlight the two main merge function selectors. Given that it's the holidays and few people have downloaded the changed version, I have stuck with version 6.1 for the updated version. You will know if you have the revised version as it has a yellow border around the merge type option buttons.
Tuesday 25th December 2012
The Many To One add-in I posted recently has proved problematical with respect to the temporary folder where the messages are stored prior to sending. Because of the flexibility of Outlook with respect to the different types of accounts it can support, and the number of possible files it can hold open simultaneously, finding a universal solution has proved nigh on impossible and occasionally the messages would stick in the drafts folder.
Today I have uploaded an update which attempts to address this, and also adds the facility to retain the last used merge type (Many to One or One to One) for use next time. The routines for creating and removing the temporary folder have also been completely re-written to improve reliability.
Friday 21st December 2012
For some weeks I have been working on a major update to the Many to One mail merge add-in to incorporate many user suggestions and to improve reliability. I also took the opportunity to add the ability to include attachments when the documents were merged to e-mail, which effectively rendered the Mail Merge with Attachments Add-in redundant. I have therefore removed that from the site.
The add-in has been redesigned from the ground up, albeit it works on similar principles to the earlier version and I have taken the opportunity to include much more error checking to eliminate all the common problems users have experienced. All the functions now have help screens available at the click of a button.
Friday 14th December 2012
Paul Edstein (Macropod) has updated his Catalogue Mail Merge tutorial.
Tuesday 4th December 2012
Update to the Merge with Attachments add-in to fix an issue relating to the failure to update all the fields in some documents.
Friday 30th November 2012
By user request I have added the options to add or remove all selected files to the dialog of the Insert a batch of files into a Word document add-in.
Monday 19th November 2012
Fixed a bug in the Many to One mail merge add-in that caused it to omit the last record.
Saturday 17th November 2012
Added a new page and add-in to attempt to simplify the inclusion of Tables of Contents in a document.
Added a second new page featuring a template with macro code to extract Outlook Contacts to an Excel worksheet, primarily for use with the various mail merge add-ins on this web site, though of course it can be used for any purpose for which Outlook Contact data would be required in an Excel Worksheet.
Thursday 18th October 2012
Further modifications to the Mail Merge with Attachments and Many to One Mail Merge add-ins to attempt to remove odd errors that some users have experienced, and to fix bugs found in each version.
Wednesday 10th October
Additional error trapping added to the Mail Merge with Attachments and Many to One Mail Merge add-ins.
Tuesday 9th October 2012
Additional functionality added to the popular Individual Merge Letters add-in to improve document handling and to allow the inclusion of a second field in the filename.
Friday 5th October 2012
Minor updates to the Many to One and Mail Merge with Attachments add-ins
Friday 14th September 2012
At the suggestion of a site user, I have added social networking site links to all the main pages. (See top right of the page.)
Sunday 9th September 2012
Yesterday while working on the problem in the Merge to E-Mail with Attachments add-in, it occurred to me that having fixed the issue with the covering message, it should be possible to include merge fields in the covering e-mail message, as well as in the attachment, and this morning I implemented that in version 4.2 for Word 2007 and 2010. This does have the drawback of slowing the process, but that is a small price to pay for the advantages. You can always leave the merge to run while you take a lunch break - or overnight!
Saturday 8th September 2012
Users had reported a bug in version 4.0 of the Merge to E-Mail with Attachments add-in, which I had confirmed, necessitating its temporary removal from the site. Fixing it has been less than straightforward, and it required a re-write of the whole of the e-mail section. This does at least mean that Version 4.1, unlike earlier versions, should now work with both Office 2010 and 2007. Hopefully users will find the new version bug free.
The lessons learned in fixing the above, have also been applied to the Many to One add-in, enabling the same add-in to be used for Word 2007 and 2010. Version 4.9 of that add-in now available. However, if you have version 4.8 working satisfactorily, there is no need to update to 4.9.
Friday 7th September 2012
Release version 1.5 of the Extract Data from Forms add-in to fix issue with attachments not being added to the return e-mail messages.
Minor bug-fix release version 3.3 of the Variables, Bookmarks and Content controls editor.
Thursday 6th September 2012
Following a suggestion from friend Greg Maxey, I have improved the handling of content control based forms in the Extract Data from Forms add-in to allow the extraction of Picture and Building Block content control values to the Word table data format. I have also added detection and rejection of documents with content controls that have not been fully completed.
I have also fixed a bug in the report function that allowed the report to be created even if Cancel was selected.
Wednesday 5th September 2012
Added an Office 2003 version of the Extract Data from Forms add-in, and made a minor programming detail change to the Office 2010 version.
Tuesday 4th September 2012
A user enquiry last month caused me to re-evaluate my page related to extracting data from forms. The result was a major new project to produce an add-in that combined the macro functions I had detailed with the addition of significant error correction in the hope that users can take advantage of it, However, their forms are formatted. The old web page title has been retained, but just about everything else has been replaced.
If you are thinking of processing protected forms (or forms with content controls) then you should find this new Extract Data from Forms add-in function useful
Tuesday 28th August 2012
A major revision of the variables and content controls etc editor, though all the credit this time must go to Greg Maxey, who has been burning the midnight oil while I have been attending to personal matters overseas and unavailable to assist.
I am not even going to try and explain the changes, but would refer you to his site for anything you have problems with.
Sunday 26th August 2012
Another minor bug fix to the Many to One merge add-in.
Thursday 2nd August 2012
I have finally completed a major revision of the Mail Merge with attachments.
The new version (Version 4.0) is initially only available for Word 2010, though I plan to try and implement the changes for Word 2007 also. However, owing to a family bereavement, this will have to wait until at least the end of the month, and I will not be available to provide support for the site during this period, so hopefully the bugs don't creep out of the new version before I get back to my office.
The previous version remains buggy, so I have removed the 2007 version entirely for the present. The 2010 version will not work in Office 2007.
Wednesday 1st August 2012
Further modifications to the dialogs of the Many to One merge add-in. Version 4.7 now available.
Tuesday 31st July 2012
Added a function to bookmark each image as it is added by the Photo Gallery add-in template.
I have removed the content from the Merge Protected Forms page as I have incorporated the function in the Many-to-One add-in. This add-in also provides an option to split a merge letter on a One-to-One basis. I have also updated the error correction and the logic behind the userform to attempt to improve reliability further.
Thanks are due to my old friend Greg Maxey whose password gathering routine pointed a way towards the password function I have used for unlocking the protected forms in this add-in, which had been driving me crazy.
Friday 27th July 2012
Further minor detail changes to the Photo Gallery add-in template.
Thursday 26th July 2012
Included some additional functions and minor bug fixes to the Photo Gallery add-in template.
Sunday 22nd July 2012
Greg Maxey has been collaborating with improvements to the Photo Gallery template, and has been trying to persuade me to convert the document template to the add-in version along the lines of the version he had produced from my template. It did not seem to make much sense to produce separate but similar templates so we have combined our efforts to produce the current version as an add-in.
There are still some minor differences in presentation between our two versions, but they are functionally identical.
Sunday 15th July 2012
Fixed a minor error in the Envelopes and Labels add-in and removed an irrelevant file from the zip file.
Monday 9th July 2012
Minor bug fix to the Photo Gallery template, to recall the last used font for the Caption text.
Thursday 5th July 2012
Minor modifications to the Many to One add-ins for Word 2007 and 2010 to ensure that the temporary Outlook folder is only created for merges to e-mail.
Wednesday 4th July 2012
A user reported that the Individual Merge Letters add-in was having difficulties with his very complex, multi-page with tables, merge document. On his system it crashed with an out of memory error before the merge could be completed. On my system it didn't even get that far, and took an age to merge to a new single document. As the merge used an Excel worksheet it occurred to me that the Many To One add-in might do the job, as this works in an entirely different way from mail merge. A test with the user's date showed it to work quite well.
In order to use the Many to One add-in for this task, it is necessary to omit the selection of child fields (see the web page) and to use the same field as key field and naming field. The add-in then should then split the document. I have added a note to this effect to the Many to One page.
Tuesday 3rd July 2012
Today was one of those rare fabulous days when the sky is clear and the views from the mountains irresistible, so I took the opportunity to add some more pictures from the near the summit of Mt. Olympos to my Cyprus 2012 gallery. No doubt there are other similar images (though perhaps less clear) in some of my other galleries, but I never get tired of the mountains (the colours of which are used in this web site theme). I have also increased the size of the thumbnails in this gallery to make them more visible to iPad users.
Monday 2nd July 2012
We are having something of a heatwave here so while it is preferable to stay indoors, I have been using the time to develop a new Photo Gallery template to enable batches of photographs or other images to be displayed in a standard format in a Word document. The initial public release number of this template is 1.2.
Saturday 16th June 2012
Prompted by a private request from a user, for a function which I suspect will have wider appeal, I have added the options to the popular Individual Merge Letters add-in to enable the documents to be saved to a Sharepoint location, and to remind users to select which records they wish to merge.
Friday 8th June 2012
The most recent versions of the Merge with Attachments and Many to One add-ins did not work with Outlook 2007, because of a change to early binding to Outlook. I have therefore produced a version that works with Outlook 2007.
Tuesday 5th June 2012
Fixed a minor bug in the extract data from forms 'Content Controls to Excel' code.
Sunday 3rd June 2012
Further modifications to the Many to One add-in to improve message handling in Outlook 2010.
Saturday 2nd June 2012
The Merge with Attachments add-in has been updated to provide better file temporary handling in Outlook 2010 where there are accounts each with their own Drafts folder, which the earlier versions could not handle. This has meant a complete re-write of the message handling parts of the add-in and removal of some of the warning messages.
I have also updated the Many to One add-in to provide similar message handling.
Thursday 31st May 2012
In response to user feedback I have changed the source code of the Many to One and Merge with Attachments add-ins to use early binding to Outlook. This resolves a problem relating to the selection of sending accounts which were ignored with late binding.
Tuesday 29th May 2012
A couple of users pointed out that the link to the merge splitter add-in was missing from the revised page. Now fixed.
My old friend Greg Maxey pointed out that the site would look better with the images centred on the pages. Reluctantly I conceded that he was right and so have spent all afternoon fixing that.
Monday 28th May 2012
15:00 hrs local time (check the clock on the home page) and despite a few teething troubles, the new site modifications are now live.
This has been a huge exercise with around 100 pages requiring modification to the new layout. If you come across any broken links or other problems that I have missed, please e-mail me via the Contact page.
Sunday 27th May 2012
The new site is still under development, but the bulk of it should be available with the next few days. In the meantime Paul Edstein has provided an update to his mailmerge tutorial.
Tuesday 15th May 2012
Having developed a layout for the new site format, work began on compiling the pages. The previous site format had been around since 2003 and was beginning to look a little tired. That site had been developed and maintained in Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Earlier this year, my site host 1 & 1 Internet Ltd had updated its software platform from Windows 2003 to Windows Server 2008R2 and the new software does not support FrontPage Extensions.
What this meant in practice was that it was difficult to maintain the updates to the site using FrontPage, so I took the plunge and moved over to Expression Web 4 and had a steep learning curve to adapt to the different way of working.
I did not feel inclined to import the best part of 10 years of history, which frankly no-one will ever look at again, but I may make the old History page available later - perhaps as a PDF file
What's New Page
Here you will find a blow by blow account of the changes made to the web site and the application updates that you can download.