Word Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 77 Number Documents Sequentially

Many businesses use numbers to track forms such
as invoices and purchase orders. Those numbers usually must go in
order and can't repeat. This hack shows you how to
use Word to keep track of the numbering for you.

If you need to generate
invoices for a business, you
might save time using a premade invoice template, such as the ones
available from the Microsoft web site. One such template is pictured
in Figure 8-14.

Figure 8-14. You can download an assortment of premade templates from Microsoft.com

The template uses MACROBUTTON fields [Hack #70]
to mark the items you replace when filling out the templatefor
example, the invoice number field, which you replace with the correct
number manually.

But how do you remember the last number you used? What if multiple
users create invoices from the same template? A quick change to the
invoice field and an AutoMacro [Hack #60]
will give you a self-sequencing invoice template.

Create your own new template, either by downloading the Invoice
template from Microsoft's web site (you can get
there quickly in Word 2003 from the New Document Task Pane [Hack #9]) or by saving a new, blank
document as a template.

Put your cursor at the spot in your template where you want the
invoice number to appear. Select InsertField, choose
DocVariable, and click the Field Codes button to
display the dialog box shown in Figure 8-15. Enter
InvoiceNumber in the "Field
codes" box, as shown in Figure 8-15.

Figure 8-15. Inserting a DOCVARIABLE field

The next section describes the macro code used to increment the
number.

8.9.1 The Code

Select ToolsMacroVisual Basic Editor and insert
the following macro in your template:

Sub AutoNew( )
Dim sINIFile As String
Dim sCurrentNumber As String
sINIFile = "C:\InvoiceTemplate.ini"
sCurrentNumber = System.PrivateProfileString(sINIFile, _
"CurrentInvoice", "Number")
If Len(sCurrentNumber) = 0 Then
sCurrentNumber = CStr(1)
End If
ActiveDocument.Variables("InvoiceNumber") = sCurrentNumber
ActiveDocument.Fields.Update
sCurrentNumber = CStr(CInt(sCurrentNumber) + 1)
System.PrivateProfileString(sINIFile, "CurrentInvoice", _
"Number") = sCurrentNumber
End Sub

This macro uses a Config file [Hack #67]
named C:\InvoiceTemplate.ini to track the
invoice number. If the file doesn't exist yet, the
macro creates one and starts the numbering at 1. The macro then puts
the number from the file into a document
variable named InvoiceNumber, which is
referenced by the field you inserted in the template. Document
variables are similar to document properties (which you view by
choosing FileProperties), but document variables can be
created, modified, and deleted only from a macro.

Save the changes and close your template. Now select
FileNew to create a new document based on the template.
Each new document created from this template will have an invoice
number one higher than the previous document.

If you need to modify the numbering, open the
InvoiceTemplate.ini file with any text editor,
as shown in Figure 8-16.

Figure 8-16. Editing the invoice number

If you want your numbering to start at 100, create a new document
from the template to run the AutoNew macro and
generate the InvoiceTemplate.ini file. Next,
open InvoiceTemplate.ini in a text editor and
change it to read Number=100. The next invoice
based on the template will be numbered 100.