Appending to a Word document

Question

Two items:
1) Is there a way to append to an already existing Word
document? I can create the Word document through AW and it updates
when then program runs, but if the file has been created outside of
AW, then the .doc does not get updated.
2) Rather than appending to the end of a Word document, is
there a way to append to the top or at least designate where the
next appended text should be written?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Authorware's AppendExtFile function will (should?) append
text to any document you reference. I'm surprised the Word doc does
not get updated at all.
However, I could certainly see the document not being updated
properly (and maybe that's just what you're seeing). The
Write/Append functions just write plain old ASCII text. Word is not
just plain old ASCII text. After appending, open the Word document
in notepad to see all the other, um, garbage Word adds to the
document. I would bet the text your appending is indeed at the
bottom, but its below Word's formatting text so you can't actually
see it...?
So, in essence, appending text to an actual Word doc probably
won't work. I'm not sure how to overcome that... Are these docs
that others will create? If not, you could try to make them in
WordPad, perhaps, and see if Authorware will update them. But once
opened and saved in Word, you're back to where you started.
There was a discussion here or the List that mentioned an
ActiveX-like control that could possibly do this. Search?
To append to the top of a block of text, you have to read it
in to a variable, add the contents to the top, then write it all
out to a new document.
Oh, also for both issues, look at the FileIO Xtra (select
'Xtra fileio' in the Functions category drop-down). Using this may
give you a solution - at least to appending at the top. Not sure
it'll work with Word, considering the hidden garbage in there....
Erik