Sage 100

Client has a group of about 10 different forms that he is using in Sales Order, Purchase Order, etc. He'd like to include a standard warranty boilerplate text on each form. Obviously one solution is to hard code it into the form. Another is to pre-print the form. What he's wondering is whether there's a way to store a text file on the server and have that used as the basis for the boilerplate text -- which means if the text changes he does not have to open up 10 different forms and make changes. This seems like something many people would want to do - however I do not think it's supported by native Crystal without using third party tools. Someone please prove me wrong.

I have a client who has embedded a Word doc in their forms and when they need to change the boilerplate, they just update the word doc and it updates all of their form.s

Does that work globally across multiple users on different workstations? Do all the people need to have Word?

It does work across all users and all workstations. I'm not 100% sure on needing to have Word on all machines. They have Word on all of their machines. It's embedded as a OLE Object.

The Word doc needs to be on the server before you start. Theirs is in the MAS90/Home/Textout Directory. Then in Crystal go to Insert -> OLE Object. Then Select Create From a File and browse to your Word doc.

Great solution Robert ..... Impressive!!

It looks like RTF would work too.

Any performance issues on this? I'm wondering if they are printing out sales orders or invoices and this is OLE doesn't it almost start up Word in order for the form to be able to print?

None that I'm aware of. They're not extremely high volume. I have a system where I can probably test whether it works with/without Word and give you an idea of how fast it runs this evening.

I passed along your info to the client so I think I'll let them test it out and judge for themselves. Thanks for this tip though!

Just for kicks I printed 680 sales orders (to a PDF printer) with this method (using a RTF since the system I was on didn't have Word). It printed them just as quickly as they did without the OLE object added.

I use similar techniques to print boilerplates and advertisements from MS Word objects embedded in a linked MS Access table. In that way - different boiler plates or ads can be selected based on data in the report such as customer type and full graphical edits can be effected without involving the Crystal Reports program. I have set up this technique for clients to announce periodic promotions via their invoices and statements.

2 thoughts: Setup a UDF in a UDT to hold the text and put that UDT on the form. Use a not equals join and it will come up on every form. Or maybe add the UDF to the company info table where the company name/header info comes from. 2nd idea is to create a report with the text, and use it as a subreport to all the parent forms.