Storing and retrieving WORD DOCUMENTS from the DB

From: <chris_brunini_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:00:17 GMT
Message-ID: <7a95ov$cnj$1_at_nnrp1.dejanews.com>

[Quoted] I have a requirement to produce word documents using mail merge. This is a list of steps to produce the document - 1) The user creates a template that is stored in the database. 2) The user requests a document (internally we have set up db tables that allow the user to associate a template with sql statements. When the user requests a document these sql statements are execute to create a data source document to be used for the template) 3) the [Quoted] Datasource document is created and wriiten to the file system. 4) The template needs to be unloaded from the db 5) the template is loaded into word [Quoted] and the datasource file attached 6) the mail merge is performed 7) the template is closed 8) If the document is changed this needs to be save back to the db, if not discard.

Now how do I perform this??
I am using forms 5 with RDBMS 8.0.4.

I was thinking of using long raws to store the word documents (as there is no [Quoted] way of getting blobs out of the database by just using pl/sql or forms). Then [Quoted] using OLE to get the WORD documents in and out of the DB.

I can get documents into a ole item using forms_ole.initialize_container and [Quoted] then commiting the form.

How do I get it out using pl/sql. I want to be able to write the document to [Quoted] the file system, then open word to read it and perform the mail merge using ole commands. I already have worked out how to perform the mail merge using [Quoted] ole, but how do I get the document out to the file system.

Then when the file document has been produced, how do I know that the user has [Quoted] modified it to save it back to the database???

Is there and way to save it to the database with first going through an forms [Quoted] ole item eg using straight pl/sql??

Any help would be appreciated

Chris

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