XL97: Automation Example with MS Word and MS Outlook

ID: Q166812

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SUMMARY

It is possible to create a Visual Basic for Applications macro that uses data from a Microsoft Word document and a Microsoft Excel workbook to send messages from Microsoft Outlook. This article contains an example of one way this may be done.

MORE INFORMATION

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The following example assumes that there are two defined names in the worksheet:

The first defined name, "subjectcell", refers to a cell that contains the message subject line (for example, "This is a test message.").
The second defined name, "tolist", refers to the first cell in the horizontal list that contains a list of recipients (for example, "John Doe", "Jane Doe", etc.).

You must also have a Microsoft Word document. The text of this document is used by the macro as the message body of your mail message.

   Sub SendOutlookMessages()

    'Dimension variables.
    Dim OL As Object, MailSendItem As Object
    Dim W As Object
    Dim MsgTxt As String, SendFile As String
    Dim ToRangeCounter As Variant

    'Identifies Word file to send
    SendFile = Application.GetOpenFilename(Title:="Select MS Word 97 " & _
        "file to mail, then click 'Open'", buttontext:="Send", _
        MultiSelect:=False)

    'Starts Word session
    Set W = GetObject(SendFile)

    'Pulls text from file for message body
    MsgTxt = W.Range(Start:=W.Paragraphs(1).Range.Start, _
       End:=W.Paragraphs(W.Paragraphs.Count).Range.End)

    'Ends Word session
    Set W = Nothing

    'Starts Outlook session
    Set OL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    Set MailSendItem = OL.CreateItem(olMailItem)

    ToRangeCounter = 0

    'Identifies number of recipients for To list.
    For Each xCell In ActiveSheet.Range(Range("tolist"), _
        Range("tolist").End(xlToRight))
        ToRangeCounter = ToRangeCounter + 1
    Next xCell

    If ToRangeCounter = 256 Then ToRangeCounter = 1

    'Creates message
    With MailSendItem
        .Subject = ActiveSheet.Range("subjectcell").Text
        .Body = MsgTxt

        'Creates "To" list
        For Each xRecipient In Range("tolist").Resize(1, ToRangeCounter)
            RecipientList = RecipientList & ";" & xRecipient
        Next xRecipient

        .To = RecipientList
        .Send
    End With

    'Ends Outlook session
    Set OL = Nothing

   End Sub

Additional query words: OutSol OutSol97

Keywords          : kbinterop kbprg kbdta KbVBA kbhowto 
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: May 17, 1999