Outlook 2003 .xls attachment importing and mail text to word docs

[grkn]

I run a small online auction buisness and get most of my sales info in .xls excel attachments that I manually need to open, copy the rows with auction winners and paste into another spreadsheet.

I also get some mails with buyer info in plaintext that I currently copy n' paste into a custom word doc and print as an envelope.

Ofcourse I would love to automate these processes a bit, and I'm wondering if it's possible to do it with AutoIt, and if, how, eighter doing it myself (boot me in the right direction please) or paying someone to do i for me (this is just something I do to pay for my mol. biology studies, be gentle )

1. I need a script to open attachments from selected mail (one running through my entire inbox for unread xls mail, marking them as read and plucking out the data would be even better, but probably much more complex), copy the rows of data needed from opened xls files, paste it in the end of my database xls and close the original xls. (I can open the xls attachments manually, takes no time).

2. And another one to copy name, adress etc fields from plaintext mails into a custom field of a word doc, print it and close the doc.

Best regards, Johan

Edited October 23, 2006 by grkn

[Locodarwin]

I run a small online auction buisness and get most of my sales info in .xls excel attachments that I manually need to open, copy the rows with auction winners and paste into another spreadsheet.

I also get some mails with buyer info in plaintext that I currently copy n' paste into a custom word doc and print as an envelope.

Ofcourse I would love to automate these processes a bit, and I'm wondering if it's possible to do it with AutoIt, and if, how, eighter doing it myself (boot me in the right direction please) or paying someone to do i for me (this is just something I do to pay for my mol. biology studies, be gentle )

1. I need a script to open attachments from selected mail (one running through my entire inbox for unread xls mail, marking them as read and plucking out the data would be even better, but probably much more complex), copy the rows of data needed from opened xls files, paste it in the end of my database xls and close the original xls. (I can open the xls attachments manually, takes no time).

2. And another one to copy name, adress etc fields from plaintext mails into a custom field of a word doc, print it and close the doc.

Best regards, Johan

Hello, Johan,

Have a look at the link in my signature for a library of functions that will help you automate Excel.

Do you have much AutoIt experience at this point? General programming experience? Excel VBA/Macro experience? Your answers to these questions will allow us to tailor our help a little better.

-S

[grkn]

Hello, Johan,

Have a look at the link in my signature for a library of functions that will help you automate Excel.

Do you have much AutoIt experience at this point? General programming experience? Excel VBA/Macro experience? Your answers to these questions will allow us to tailor our help a little better.

-S

Thanks! I have some but rusted programming experience, opening the excel docs goes quite fast, although fully automating it would be prefferable it's no big problem, and I guess the copying of the rows in excel to another sheet can be done with excel macros? Not that I know how to.

I have some other things that could need some automation, if you have any thoughts on this please share, currently I get xls data that I manually paste into a database sheet, when people pay for their items I manually mark them as paid, and then in word use a mail merge to print envelopes for those who have.

- How can I mark those who have paid and automatically move them to a "paid" sheet (and remove any resulting gaps in the original sheet)?

I think It would make things easier, I've still got to hand pick the ones to send to in word though. Any workaround for that?

[Locodarwin]

Thanks! I have some but rusted programming experience, opening the excel docs goes quite fast, although fully automating it would be prefferable it's no big problem, and I guess the copying of the rows in excel to another sheet can be done with excel macros? Not that I know how to.

I have some other things that could need some automation, if you have any thoughts on this please share, currently I get xls data that I manually paste into a database sheet, when people pay for their items I manually mark them as paid, and then in word use a mail merge to print envelopes for those who have.

- How can I mark those who have paid and automatically move them to a "paid" sheet (and remove any resulting gaps in the original sheet)?

I think It would make things easier, I've still got to hand pick the ones to send to in word though. Any workaround for that?

Everything you've described can be automated using AutoIt, up to and possibly including "hand-picking" the entries you send into Word.

Are you going to attempt to write this script yourself? Or, are you really wanting to pay someone to do it? Which way are you leaning toward?

If you're more interested in having someone do it for you, for compensation or not, I'm going to pass. I have way too many things going on.

If you're interested in attempting it yourself, have you downloaded AutoIt and tried your hand at a few basic scripting projects to acclimate yourself to the language? If you have not, I would recommend you do this first. Then, design for your yourself a basic flow chart of psuedo-code (i.e. something a little more involved than what you've already outlined) to help flesh out the things your script needs to do.

Then, I would open a copy of AutoIt help (it's excellent), and start plugging away at the new script, turning your psuedo-code into actual code.

When you hit a snag, ask a specific question here in this thread and I've no doubt it'll get answered quickly. In particular, when you have a specific question about how to automate a step in Excel, along with a sample piece of code that illustrates what you're trying to do, I can definitely help.

As it stands, your questions are too general to be answered with simple directives. It's like asking someone how to drive a car - there's no quick answer that is going to make sense to someone who hasn't driven one, or at least witnessed the process from the passenger's seat.

In a case like that, explaining how to do it takes much longer and requires much more effort than just doing it.

Anyway, if you decide to write the script on your own, pick up a copy of my ExcelCOM_UDF found at the link in my sig. You'll find it useful come scripting time.

-S

[grkn]

Thanks a lot, I'll think about putting in the effort to do so and return for help if i decide to try!