can't get each record to print separately

[Kathleen]

Hi,

I have a 155 participant mail merge that is set up with each record having 5
pages. The first page prints on letterhead, the second/third on memo paper
and pages 3 - 5 on white paper. The print works great for the first record
and then continues to use the white paper which, I think, means that the
document doesn't know when a record ends. I thought page breaks would work
but it didn't or I didn't do it write. Looking through some of the posts
there was a suggestion from Doug Robbins to use a macro but I have no idea
what it means.

Dim i As Long
With ActiveDocument
For i = 1 To .Sections.Count
..PrintOut Range:=wdPrintFromTo, From:="s" & i, To:="s" & i
Next i
End With


Is there a way to do this or is the only option to click print when viewing
each record?

Kathleen

 

[Peter Jamieson]

It can be impossible to get this right if your printer drivers do not do the
right thing. The problem is that Word sends the output for a merge as a
single print job, and in some cases the printer does not honour the
different page types.

What Doug is suggesting is:
a. merge to a new document rather than directly to the printer
b. print each Word Section as a separate print job. Unless you have a
section break in your mail merge main document, when Word outputs to a new
document, each copy of your letter is in a different Word Section, so this
way each letter is printed seperately.

ATo see how to run this macro, see Graham Mayor's page at

http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

(You'll probably need to add

Sub printmylettters()

at the top of DOug's code and

End Sub


at the bottom)

Peter Jamieson

 

[Kathleen]

Hi Peter,

I'm in the merge set up and have inserted a section break to new page. Now
it gives me a blank page prior to the new record. Is that correct? I'm not
sure I understand the "print each section" from new document means.

Kathleen

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Word adds a section break itself for each "copy" of your mail merge main
document that it puts in the new document. So there's no need to add
anything to your document. Take the break out again, and try again. The main
problem you will have is if you actually already have any section breaks in.
(sorry, got to go now!)

Peter Jamieson

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

As Peter said, do NOT add any section breaks to the mail merge main
document.

You have not told us what version of Word you are using, which makes it a
bit hard to tell you exactly what commands to execute, but you must execute
the merge to a new document. If you are using the mail merge wizard, the
misleading description of that command is something like Edit Individual
Documents.

If you are using a version of Word before 2007, from the View menu, select
Toolbars and check the Mail Merge item. That toolbar contains buttons for
all of the actions that are required to crate and execute a mail merge and
towards the right hand end of the toolbar there are a series of buttons of
which there is one for each of the destinations to which the merge can be
executed.

In Word 2007, if you click on the Finish & Merge pulldown in the Finish
section of the Mailings tab of the Ribbon, select the Edit Individual
Documents button.

When you execute the merge to a new document, the document that appears will
contains all 155 of the five page letters with each one separated by a
Section Break that is inserted automatically as part of the merge execution.

With that document as the active document, running the macro that I had
written will send each of those letters to the printer as a separate print
job.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Kathleen]

Hi Doug/Peter,

Sorry I didn't give the Word version I'm using. Its 2003. I went through
"edit individual documents" and have saved to a new name. No section breaks
entered. I haven't set up a macro in years and am having trouble figuring
out what information to put where. I'll read through the link in the
previous post to learn more. Peter, thanks for giving it.

Doug, your macro will save me from much physical therapy. Today's merge was
a rush so it had to be done manually from the main merge document using the
preview portion to print each record. Only had to do click on print 155
times. With your help, tomorrow's will be much easier.

Thank you both for all your help and patience.

Kathleen

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Look at the information on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website for which Peter
gave you the link. It contains step by step instructions on what to do with
the code.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com