Hi,

since December 2000, my company uses an application based
on IB/IBO which the users (and me, too) are very satisfied
with.

For the next major version, I plan to implement a feature
that enables the users to store word/excel docs in the
DB.
It should not just be
- save to disk
- store as blob in DB.

It should be somehow like this:
- user opens my app
- clicks "create invoice" in my app
- my app opens a new window with Microsoft Word in it
- my app does some automation like inserting articles,
prices, adress, etc.
- when the user has finished, the doc is saved to the DB.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do this.
I have look around in the internet for a while and found
some pointers, but I think there are some people here who
have already done this and perhaps some of them could give
some more valuable information :-)

Generally, I would like to know:
- how to call word etc. as a "child" of my application - some
pointers to OLE or whatever
- how to use IBO to save the results of the word session (= a document)
in the database
- some pointers to good howtos about office automation, hints, etc.

I know that some of the above points do not really refer to IBO -
so if some of your answers get too much OT feel free to e-mail me
privately.

One more information: I use Delphi4 C/S , IBO 3.6 and Office 2000.


TIA for your answers.


Christian