Create Catalog from database like MSWord???

I use CorelDraw 8 and I want to buy CorelDraw Suite 11 for one thing in particular, if it can do it.
Can you create a catalog like in MS Word using merge codes that pull data from fields in a MS Access database table? I can code in vba.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by diwin

I use CorelDraw 8 and I want to buy CorelDraw Suite 11 for one thing in particular, if it can do it.
Can you create a catalog like in MS Word using merge codes that pull data from fields in a MS Access database table? I can code in vba.

CorelDRAW 11 has a native print merge feature which can be connected to an ODBC database. However it works only during printing. It can't create a document with all the data.

It is possible though to use VBA macro to pull the data from a database and generate a document from it. But you will have to do it yourself. CorelDRAW doesn't provide any help on that (apart from its object model which lets your macro create shapes, add text, apply fonts etc).

I hope this helps.

Thanks Alex.

I am using CorelDraw more and more as a page layout app, rather than a vector illustration app. I hope the object model in version 11, which I just upgraded from 8 - and am just starting to learn, accomodates the page layout functionality well.

Can VBA accomodate the height of a text box that gets filled with a text field from an access database? I plan to loop through 800 plants in a product table to create a catalogue. The description field will contain different description string lengths. For this to display correctly, the text box height has to grow/shrink for each one.

Thanks for any feedback.

Well, as I hoped, it was actually much easier than originally anticipated. It worked beautifully. The fun part is that it took my script 15 minutes to generate the catalogue.

It is a simple black and white catalogue and will have a pdf on the client's e-com website soon. When it is up, I will post a url so you can see what I did.

If you want to see a 40 page retail catalogue created with CorelDraw 11 using VBA to fill the pages from a Microsoft Access 2000 product database, go to http://www.wrightmanalpines.com/shipping.asp. Go to near the bottom and download the 2 pdf files of the catalogue. These 2 pdf files, when printed as instructions explain, will construct the a copy of the actual catalogue we printed on an offset press, identical in every way, including size.

The whole script consists of 722 lines of code on one page. There are over 600 items in the catalogue. The catalogue script takes about 15 minutes to run.

If you want to know more about it, contact me personally. I am the webmaster at the above-mentioned url.

Originally Posted by diwin

If you want to see a 40 page retail catalogue created with CorelDraw 11 using VBA to fill the pages from a Microsoft Access 2000 product database, go to http://www.wrightmanalpines.com/shipping.asp. Go to near the bottom and download the 2 pdf files of the catalogue. These 2 pdf files, when printed as instructions explain, will construct the a copy of the actual catalogue we printed on an offset press, identical in every way, including size.

The whole script consists of 722 lines of code on one page. There are over 600 items in the catalogue. The catalogue script takes about 15 minutes to run.

If you want to know more about it, contact me personally. I am the webmaster at the above-mentioned url.

hellothere..
I am using corel x4 can you help me out with creating the catalog...