Just recently, one of my clients needed the ability to automatically generate letters to a select list of customers from their custom CRM program - which is a .NET Windows application written in C# with a SQL Server database. Instead of creating a SQL report (which is difficult to maintain); the idea came to me to use Microsoft Word mail merge. However, this meant that I was in need of finding a way to accomplish this using code.

I found several articles (like this one from Microsoft) that showed how to automate the mail merge, including how to create a data source and a form letter from scratch. But since I would already have the data and would simple reuse the same form letter each time, I needed to find a way to open an existing data source and the form letter from code.

After a little more digging, experimenting, and tweaking - I was able to discover a simple, effective way to do so. I've outlined this solution in the following article (the first one I've written in a couple of years - and my first ever programming article):

How to Automate a Mail Merge from Microsoft Word 2003 Programmatically in .NET

One of the things I learned about configuring mail merge data sources in a ODC file is that you can't use a SQL query to sort or filter you data result; you can only specify a table. Not a big deal, I just used a view instead that sorts and filters the data for me.

Happy Programming ... and Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Here's another opportunity to flex your Microsoft Office muscle. Unlike the Access 101 Quiz, this one is a little tougher - so you gotta know your stuff.

But before you start, it's good to have an understanding of what makes up a database. Perhaps you feel like you already know. Well, here's a way to know for sure ... take a pop quiz! Dian Chapman, a long time Microsoft Word MVP, has created a 10 question quiz to test your basic knowledge of Microsoft Access databases.

Quiz: Word 201

If you already took the Access 101 Quiz, all you need is your login info and you're all set. If this is your first time taking one of their quizzes, you'll need to do is sign up as a FREE subscriber to her TechTrax community. Be sure to check out Dian's Microsoft Office resources for more expert advice. Good luck on the test!

And no ... I did not score 100 this time (that's what I get for second guessing myself.) 

Well … I finally took the plunge. About two weeks, I finally installed Microsoft Office 2007. Not that I scared to take the plunge, or that I was being "old school" and not willing to change; because I've been looking forward to checking it out for a while. It just wasn't time for me until now - I had other priorities that needed more of my attention (no big deal - love you, though.)

But now that the time has come, my first impressions are extremely good. The new interface looks so good, but it's so different - particularly the new ribbon bar. However, the bottom line is that I was able to take care of my tasks without much of a learning curve and just as fast as I would have with Office 2003. Not only is it comfortable, but it's a joy to use - even my wife likes to use it. As a software developer, it is hard to make software enjoyable to the user; in my opinion, Microsoft Office 2007 has accomplished that.

There's a lot of great new stuff that I'm looking forward to learning about. However, I will not submit a post on every single new feature offered (plenty of other sites already do that very well). Instead, I will continue to focus on the features that enhance the document process. One thing I've noticed is that there's a lot of features in Office 2007 that can be found in Office 2003; however, the improvement and placement of them make these features more accessible and easier to use - you will definitely hear more about these in the future.

Another new experience that I've already taken advantage of is using Microsoft Office OneNote. I already know that OneNote will single handedly change the way I organize all aspects of life. Everything on my desk, in my portfolio, and everywhere else I have important info will be reduced to my laptop. This will make my information easier to pull, and I'll be able to keep much more information much more effectively. 

I look forward to continuing to share my Office 2007 joy with you in the months to come. In the meantime, I encourage you to take the plunge and see for yourself.

For my first technical post of 2007, I think it's only appropriate for it to be on something I writing about for the first time on this blog ... Microsoft Access. With the rise of Oracle, SQL Server, and custom company applications - Microsoft Access has been put on the shelf a bit. However, I believe it is still a great program to use for storing and organizing data for personal and small business use.

The great thing about Microsoft Access is that virtually anyone can learn how to use it for things like address books, inventories, libraries, and even billing. Even better, it has template wizards that you can use to build them for you.

But before you start, it's good to have an understanding of what makes up a database. Perhaps you feel like you already know. Well, here's a way to know for sure ... take a pop quiz! Dian Chapman, a long time Microsoft Word MVP, has created a 10 question quiz to test your basic knowledge of Microsoft Access databases.

Quiz: Access 101

The only you'll need to do is sign up as a FREE subscriber to her TechTrax community - which is a fantastic Microsoft Office resource where you'll find beginning and expert advice alike. After that, it's happy testing - good luck!

And yes ... I scored 100 (surprise, surprise). 

As I celebrate the new year and think about my life & the goals that I've set for myself, I can't help but to feel a great deal of gratitude. And though there are many people on my list to thank personally for giving of themselves to contribute making my future possible, today is reserved to give thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. And though I am always grateful for his great example and what he did for us, this year I wish to do something small to actually show my gratitude.

Today, I wish to assist in "building the dream" by spreading the word about the MLK Memorial that is scheduled to be completed in 2008 in Washington DC. This will be the 4th memorial in the historic National Mall (along with the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial), and the 1st non-presidential memorial ever built there.

In order for this to happen, over 20 million dollars is needed to complete the project. To make the MLK Memorial a reality, they are asking us to give whatever donations we can. I plan on making at least a $30 donation to get one of those "Dream Now" t-shirts, and will be encouraging my family to do the same (at least $5 to get a wristband and a lapel pin.)

Thank you in advance for your assistance in a great cause. May all of us have a great 2007!

BTW - I'm pretty sure that my next few posts will be about documents.

To say that I'm doing a "Dave Chappelle" would be overstating things quite a bit. No, I didn't go out of the country. No, I'm not upset at anyone regarding my creative rights (I blog this site on my own.) However, I did take a much needed break from blogging to take of several personal items of business.

One of the big items was moving me and my family from Atlanta, GA to Richmond, VA - which I would encourage people to avoid doing during the winter holiday season as much as possible; unfortunately for us, it could not be avoided. But thanks for my lovely wife arranging everything while I started my new job as an IT consultant, we were able to make through beautifully.

The best part about this move is that I'll finally have more time for things that are important in my life. This is because:

1. No more Atlanta traffic. Richmond has no idea what a "real" traffic jam is.
2. I'm only have a 10 minute commute (no interstate highways)
3. I no longer have to work 60-70 hours a week without getting overtime pay; which means I'm usually home my 6pm.
4. Life is slower and much more relaxed here than it is in the ATL.

And what are the things that are important in my life? A lot of things are important to me, but here are the ones that come to me (in this order):

1. My relationship with God - cause I believe that if I don't get this right, I won't get anything right, either. And getting it right means to follow Christ example - serving people, caring for people, and uplifting people) including myself.
2. Continuing to make my marriage better everyday. My wife and I make a great team. She is my best friend, and I love her more than anyone in the world - and I tell her everyday. I also try to show her that everyday as well.
3. My wife and I have a high schooler, a middle schooler, and two in elementary school that need all the time and nurturing they can get from their father. They are all great kids with great potential, and I'm excited that they get more of my time now to ensure (as much as we can) that they reach that potential.
4. Though I've had a good IT career thus far as a programmer, I have goals to make it a great career. For one, I enjoy teaching and I'm excited to start teaching computer classes for Learning Tree next year. I have 4 certifications left to become a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, and I also don't have a bachelor's degree yet - both of which I'd like to obtain sooner or later.
5. Blogging on BetterDocuments.com has been the perfect remedy for putting down my thoughts on topics that are important to me. I still have passionate about creating documents that are effective in every way, so I look forward to being even more expressive about that in the years to come.

This will be my last post for 2006, but if all continues to go well for me (which I'm glad to say it has so far), you'll see a lot more of me in 2007. Until then, please have a happy and safe New Year (oh! and I hope your other winter holidays were good, too!)

Well, not completely free; but when you see the new Microsoft Excel limits, it may as well be unlimited. Most of the limits mentioned in this blog never bothered me, because I never needed anymore than what Excel gave me; but there were a couple that always bothered me and that I'm looking forward to taking advantage of:

Number of conditional format conditions on a cell: Old Limit: 3 conditions New Limit: Limited by available memory The total number of available rows in Excel: Old Limit: 64k  (2^16) New Limit: 1M  (2^20) The number of levels of nesting that Excel allows in formulas: Old Limit: 7 New Limit: 64

27 Limits That Microsoft Excel 2007 Scaled Up

Of course, at some point someone's gonna test even these limits with something; but in that case, they should be programming something. As far as all the sane people like me, these new limits are gonna be more than enough. Enjoy!

OK, I can't decide whether this download demonstrates the great power of Microsoft Excel, or if this is the supreme example of someone with incredibly too much time on his hands. Either way, this is probably the coolest Microsoft Excel file ever! I mean, I was playing one of my childhood favorite arcade games, Pacman, but in Microsoft Excel. Did you hear what I said? Pacman, in Excel!

I always knew that you could do over a million things (so it seems) with Excel; but this accomplishment takes it up a notch for me. The credit belongs to Nobuya Chikada, known as the "Japanese Excel Crazy Guy", who basically wanted to see if it could be done. After two years, I guess he found out he could. Here's his reason for doing it:

I'm very happy if you feel Excel & VBA has an infinite possibility! For all I know, It must be meaningful that makes the program works on Excel!!

Excuse the broken English, but you know what he's trying to say. Seeing this Excel file will definitely open you eyes to how you can take advantage of Microsoft Office; because if he can recreate Pacman with Microsoft Excel, what could you do with it?

However, you will have to enable macros on this file for the game to work; you'll also notice the hour glass working harder than normal - which is due to the file refreshing the screen to make everything move. Other than that, here's to childhood memories! Nice work, Nobi!

Download Pacman for Excel

This month, several features have been added to Google Spreadsheets. As you can tell, the one I'm most excited about is the ability to share a Google Spreadsheet with anyone. When you enable a spreadsheet to be viewable by anyone, it creates a special URL that can be sent to anyone; you can invite others to view your spreadsheet from here, as well.

Though it requires the invitee to have a free Google account, this will be a powerful, easy way of sharing important, detailed information to anyone you want. As a matter of fact, it just so happens that I have some important information to share with you in my own Google Spreadsheet that I've created for my readers. OK, maybe it's not that important, but I share it all the same!

Other features that Google has added include the ability to convert to PDF or Open Document Format (ODF), and the ability to print your spreadsheet easily. Check out their What's New page for more information on all of their new features.

After running a boy scout event on the computer merit badge, there's one thing that I know for sure ... kids know way more software features than we do! One of the assignments I gave them was to create a PowerPoint presentation; and not only were they all extremely creative, but all of them used cool tricks that I've never used before. That being said, there's a reason that I've never used those "cool" tricks - it's because I never need them.

The scouts had a great time creating these PowerPoint presentations; but unless you want to show the equivalent of a Bugs Bunny cartoon to your boss or a client that you're trying to get business from, you probably won't want to hire any of them as a slide show consultant. The key to great PowerPoint slides is simplicity. Let me clarify, I didn't say plainness, dullness, uncreativeness, or colorless - because you actually need all of those things in order to create great PowerPoint slides; but each one of these aspects needs to be done simply.

Background
Don't just change the color; you should definitely take advantage of the slide design & templates to change the backgrounds of your slides. But when you select a background design, use the ones that give the allusion that it's just one color; in order words, don't pick one that too busy. In the end, the background needs to enhance the words on the screen and not distract from them.

Slide Transition & Custom Animation
There's a lot of fun ways to move from one slide to the next, or from one bullet to another. For the most part though, the basic "Fade" is all you need. Again, you don't want the transitions & animation to distract from your presentation; you also don't want the appearance that you have to add junk to your presentation to make up for a lack of substance. Making simple moves shows power!

Graphics
We've all seen PowerPoint presentations with graphics on every single slide. It's fun for about 2 or 3 slides, but then it gets redundant. Your text content is your centerpiece, but that doesn't mean not to use any graphics; just make sure that those graphics make your text content look good.

Keeping presentations simple has served me well for a long time, and I always get compliments afterwards. So for your next presentation, I hope these tips help to make your PowerPoint presentation great! But if you get stuck on how to use something, ask one of your kids ... you'll be surprised what they know (just don't let them do it for you)!

It's always proper to have headings and subheadings to be formatted the same throughout a document. Sure, you can use the AutoFormat button to accomplish this - even when you make a change to them down the road, it's easy to use over and over (especially on smaller documents.) But experienced Word users know and apply the popular Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles to their headings and subheadings, making life a lot easier (especially on larger documents.)

There are two reasons for this. First of all they are easy to apply to text; I use the dropdown on the Formatting toolbar. Secondly, when you need to make a change on any of them - modifying the format of the style changes all the headings in your document automatically. Basically, it's what they were originally created for. But is this all that these styles are good for? Of course not.

They're called built-in heading styles (by the way, there's actually 9 of these), and they are the foundation for setting up other documents and scenarios in Microsoft Word. Shauna Kelly, Microsoft Word MVP, post an article on her FAQ site called "Why use Microsoft Word's built-in Heading styles?", where she outlines 15 reasons (other than the one I explained above) to use them.

I've used them for creating Table of Contents pages (Reason #3) for several years; but even I learned a few other reasons for using them - like Reason #10, creating bookmarks in a PDF. The best reason, according Shauna, is Reason #15, the Outline View:

You can use other styles in Outline View, and you can choose the Level at which they'll appear. But it's easiest to use the built-in Heading styles, because they're already set up ready for you. Outline View is probably the most useful, and least used, resource in Word. See How to save yourself hours by using Outline View properly at the MS Word MVP FAQ site for a full (and enthusiastic) description of what Outline View can do, and how to use it.

This is more than a worth while read for any Microsoft Word user, and you will learn a great deal about its capabilities other than built-in styles. Thank you, Shauna.

Happy Labor Day!

If your machine hasn't been updated in a while with the latest Microsoft updates, and virus definitions ... this may be a good time for you to take some time to do so. Every week, hundreds of new viruses are being created and causing PC's everywhere to buckle, particularly when it comes to Microsoft products.

The latest virus getting a lot of press is called the "Zero-day Microsoft PowerPoint" trojan virus. After you've updated your machine(s), check out these links to get more information about it:

http://tailrank.com/posts/562949953823303/Microsoft_PowerPoint_0-day_Vulnerability_FAQ
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/37089.html

Hey, be careful out there!

Toolbar buttons in desktop applications (including Microsoft Office) are a great thing; couldn't imagine life without them. But there are still some cases where keyboard shortcuts are better for me. For example, I still use Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V to cut, copy, and paste respectfully (it's a habit I never got out of.) And why would I go to the Edit menu and click "Select All" when I can just do a Ctrl+A and I'm done - you know what I'm saying?

There are also keyboard shortcuts that you should know about when you run a slide show with a PowerPoint presentation. Why? Two reasons: 1) Because they'll make your presentation more interactive, thus increasing the effectiveness of it; 2) Because there's no toolbar buttons available in Slide Show mode. Here are two that I use a lot:

Slide Number + ENTER
When the audience has a question, sometimes it's helpful to go back (or forward) to specific slide that assists you in answering it. To do that, just type the slide number and press Enter. Obviously, this works best when you know the slide number; otherwise, you can always use the Backspace key to go backward in your presentation until you spot the one you need.

B or W
If you've presented a slide and you're not quite ready to move on to the next one, it's important to draw the attention back on you - otherwise they'll keep getting distracted by your beautiful presentation. Pressing the letter "B" makes the screen go black, and the letter "W" makes it go white. I normally go with a black screen, but sometimes white it better based on the room you're in. When you're ready to move on, just press any key.

For more keyboard shortcuts to use in your slide show, check out this post from Brainy Betty.

Those of you that have ever been involved in project management should be very familiar with Gantt charts. If not, I think it'd be good for you to learn what they are. GanttChart.com states that it's a "graphical representation of the duration of tasks against the progression of time." Gantt charts are incredible useful for graphing project schedules because you're able to glean a lot of information from them in a short amount of time. GanttChart.com has a lot of useful resources on Gantt charts, including the history of them and some examples.

Most project management application (like Microsoft Project) come with the ability to create Gantt charts easier from one click after you've mapped out your project schedule. However, when you add all of the other bells and whistles needed to do complete project management, this software is very expensive; and if you don't need the other features, why spend thousands of dollars just to generate Gantt charts?

This is where Microsoft Excel comes in. Jon Peltier has written an article demonstrates two methods for creating Gantt charts: Worksheet Formatting and Stacked Bar Charts. Worksheet Formatting method involves shading the appropriate cells to show when tasks are assigned to be done. You can either shade the cells yourself, or use conditional formatting to do the work for you. The Stacked Bar chart method, however, will give you a chart that is more professional-looking and versatile to do other things with.

For even more information, check out Jon Peltier's web page that lists other links on creating Gantt Chart using Microsoft Excel. This page also lists other tools that you can use to create them for FREE.

For quite a long time, Brainy Betty has provided great resources for Microsoft Powerpoint, including free templates, backgrounds and other graphics. She now has a Blogger site where she posts tutorials, articles, and even vlogs.

Here's a vlog that contains a video that demonstrates how easy it is to create your wedding monogram in Microsoft Powerpoint. This post serves as an example of the diversity of tasks that can be done in Microsoft Office. Even though I just celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary last week, I tried it out and able create this one in about 5 minutes! What do you think?