Microsoft Word Terminology

Microsoft Word Terminology

You should be familiar with the following terms when you are using FIMS with MS Office.

Main Document – The MS Word term for the document file that holds the boilerplate text, formatting, and merge fields (variables).

• Note: This is the target document you specify when you use the Auto Launch Document feature in FIMS reports. When you initially create the Main Document, you should enter the document location and file name in the Auto Launch Document field and save it as part of a Default setting for the selected export.

Data File – An information file exported from FIMS that provides the variable values for merge fields in Word. The path and file name of a data file must be identified during the creation of the MS Word Main Document and any included documents. It is therefore convenient to use the same path and file name each time you export data from FIMS that is destined for a specific Main Document.

• You can set a general default pathname for each export category in FIMS (for example, you could set c:\Gift.txt as the default file for both the Gift Acknowledgment Export and the Gift History – Export). To set these defaults, select Tools > System Utilities > System Initial Setup and click the Word Processing tab. When you run the report or export in FIMS, you can also change the path and file name on the Send To tab and save it as part of the Default setup for the report.
• Note: Refer to Saving Report Settings in the Reports chapter for more information.
• In multi-user environments, it is a good idea to use a directory on the workstation hard drive for your data files. If you use a shared destination directory, one user may inadvertently overwrite the data file of another user, and if you use a mapped drive that represents a different directory for each user, MS Word will have difficulty finding the data files.
• The data file is a delimited text or ASCII file. Each record included in the FIMS export is represented in the data file by a single line, terminated by a paragraph mark (carriage return). Each field in the record line is usually encapsulated by quotes (although numeric fields can omit the quotes) and is delimited (separated) from the next data field by a Tab character. The first line in the data file contains the file headers, which are delimited by Tab characters, but are not in quotes.

Form Letter – Microsoft Word term for the new document that is the result of a merge. It typically contains a separate section for each record, all with the same boilerplate but with different values in place of the merge fields.