Computer Toolkit

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Computer Toolkit:

1. TextPad
I first started using TextPad about five years ago. At the time, I was using another application for html coding from scratch. As I gradually learned to use TextPad's regular expressions and its many clip libraries, I began to use TextPad more and more. About two years ago I decided to make TextPad my primary tool for creating and editing html, css, and JavaScripts.

2. MS Access
I have been using Access since Windows or the Internet. It's easy to use and very handy for small projects. Being a self-taught programmer and database designer, I have used Access to organize all sorts of personal and work-related data. Whenever I have a problem or want to try something new--it's easy to find sample code on the web.

3. Mail Merge to Word using Access
A couple of years ago I started selling used items on eBay. At first, I would do the html page for each auction one by one--using TextPad for coding. Eventually that got pretty old--some weeks I would have five or ten items to be posted over the weekend.

I started searching for a quick and easy way to transfer the data I had organized for each auction item to an html page that would eventually be posted to eBay. After doing some research, I found an article that explained how to do a mail merge page--transferring an Access table or query to MS Word--having each record dumped to merged page. It works beautifully. There is lots of information out there with sample code and tutorials.

Tip: Do the html template with TextPad (or your favorite coder), test it, then save that template as a Word "doc" file. When you're ready to import your data from Access to Word, use "doc" file template as your boilerplate document.


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