Creating Business Cards

[Rhino]

Help, I'm baffled!

I am relatively new to Word - I'm using Microsoft Office 2002 - but I know
several other word processors and am pretty good at reading help screens to
figure things out but I'm having problems with creating business cards in
Word.

Actually, what I'm trying to produce are about 30 membership cards for a
club I belong to. I'm using Avery 8371 business cards. On each membership
card, I want to put the name of the club, the club logo (which is a small
JPEG image), the member name, the member number, and the dates for which the
card is valid, something like this:

------------------------------------
Smallville Book Club

<club logo>

Joe Blow
Member #2006-01
July 2006 - June 2007
-------------------------------------

Naturally, I want to use a variety of fonts and colours for the text on the
card and everything should be nicely centered and so forth.

The first problem is that I can't figure out how to do the design/layout for
the individual cards! I started the Mail Merge wizard and chose a document
type of labels (there was no option for business cards so lables seemed the
closest alternative) in Step 1. In Step 2, I clicked on Label options and
chose Avery 8371 labels. The main document window shows me a a page layout
that resembles a grid of 5 rows by 2 columns, sized very much like the Avery
8371 cards. So far so good.

Now, how do I design the contents of the cards? In other words, how do I:
- put the "constants" on each card, namely the club name, the logo, and the
membership period (July 2006 - June 2007) on the card? Ideally, I only want
to put those in the design of the card once since they will be same on every
card. (In a way, the membership period is actually a variable: next year,
I'll want the cards to say "July 2007 - June 2008". I'm not sure how to
accomplish that either.)
- put the member names on each card? I assume this will involve doing a
merge with a database of member names but I've never done this in Word.
- increment the member numbers for each card? The member number is the
4-digit year, followed by a dash, followed by a two digit integer (01, 02,
.... 09, 10, ... 30). That integer could be automatically generated but I'm
not sure if Word can do that, let alone how it's done.
- format the various bits of text appropriately, i.e. set the fonts, text
color, alignment.

I'm hoping it is possible to do these things in Word but I'm not finding it
very intuitive so far and I'm having trouble coaxing the Help into telling
me how to do these things.

Your guidance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Try the business card template you can download at
http://addbalance.com/word/download.htm. Business cards are labels in Word,
which is to say the document is a table. It helps to display table
gridlines. You may want to take a look at
http://www.gmayor.com/graphics_on_labels.htm.

Here is some general info on moving from Word Perfect to Word:

Word and Word Perfect work very differently from one another. Each program's
methods have strengths and weaknesses; but, if you try to use one of these
programs as if it were the other, it is like pushing on a string! You can
easily make a lot of extra work for yourself. In the (short) long term
(weeks rather than years) spending the time to learn Word will save you time
if you are spending any time at all (more than an hour a day) using Word.

See http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordperfect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/concepts/introduction/index.html
for information on Word for Word Perfect users.

For more:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm


Function Keys

In Word 2000 (or later) You can get the function keys to display in a
special toolbar at the bottom of the screen if you want (something like
pressing F3 twice in WP). The following macro will do this.
Sub ShowMeFunctionKeys()
Commandbars("Function Key Display").Visible = True
End Sub

Word's Extend key (F8) gives something similar to block processing.


Formatting and Styles

Learn about Styles - really learn!
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm I resisted for years and now
regret every day of those years because although that string was still very
hard to push, it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important
projects tied to it! Once you understand styles and the Word concept of
organizing things into Chinese boxes everything falls into place and instead
of pushing a string, you can push a button that turns on the very powerful
text processing machine known as Microsoft Word and it will start doing your
work for you instead of running around behind you trying to undo what you
just thought you did.


Converting documents Word / Word Perfect

Some special characters in Word Perfect documents don't convert well to
Word. There is a macro to assist with this described at
http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/wptoword.html#macroword and can be found
at http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/WPSymbolConv.bas.
This was prepared by Edward Mendelson.
Otherwise, look at the macro from http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=212396
Use these on _copies_!

As for converting documents from Word Perfect to _use_ in Word... In a word,
don't plan on it. I would not recommend using converted documents long-term.
They will be filled with formatting anomolies that will get you at the worst
time. This is especially true of any documents containing automatic
numbering or bullets. Try recreating form documents in Word using the
following process:
In Word Perfect (if you still have it, in Word if not) save your files as
text files.
Use your converted files as references to show you how you want your
formatting to look.
Create a new document in Word and insert the text from the text file. Save
this new document as a Word template. Format it the way you want using
styles, not direct formatting. Save it again.
To use a template within Word, use File => New and pick your template. This
will create a new document for you.

Merge documents have special problems and should be recreated from text
files or retyped in Word. To convert data files, consider generating labels
in WP as a document, converting that to Word, and then using
http://www.gmayor.com/convert_labels_into_mail_merge.htm to get a new Word
data file.

Note that conversions usually do create documents that look passable and
print OK; the problems I'm referring to have to do with editing / making
changes, that is, using the documents long-term. (See below on reusing
documents vs. using templates.)

Conversion back to Word Perfect: There is a problem (in addition to the ones
mentioned for conversion _to_ Word) with Version 2002 (XP) and later of
Word. The conversion file only works for conversion _to_ Word, not from Word
to Word Perfect! Earlier versions went both ways. To fix this, you need to
find the old conversion file WPFT532.CNV from a Word 97 or Word 2000
installation and copy it to your new installation, replacing the file of the
same name. Note, the change making the file one-way was done as a security
measure. While I don't know of any problems the old file causes, keep the
new installation's file somewhere as a backup just in case.



Boilerplate and Forms

In WP a lot of people use macros to hold chunks of text - boilerplate. In
Word this function is filled by Templates, AutoText and AutoCorrect, not
macros. Follow the links at
http://addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#AutoText for more
information on these tools.

You can use FILLIN and ASK fields or UserForms to query the user. For more
about online forms, follow the links at
http://addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#Forms or
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/FillinTheBlanks.htm especially Dian
Chapman's series of articles. You may also want to look at
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/LinesInForms.htm.



Letterhead

How to set up letterhead or some other document where you want one header on
the first page and a different header on other pages.
http://www.addbalance.com/word/headersfooters.htm This gives step-by-step
instructions. (It also has the following links)

Some other pages to look at:

Letterhead Tips and Instructions
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/Letterhead.htm

Letterhead Textboxes and Styles tutorial
http://addbalance.com/word/download.htm#LetterheadTextboxesAndStylesTutorial
(for simulating different margins on different pages, among other things)



Reusing Documents vs. Using templates

General practice in WP is to have a document and copy and edit it to create
a new document. This is not good practice in Word. In Word, construct a
good, tight, template for your documents and use that template when
constructing new documents. Among other things, this can avoid embarrassing
"metadata" (http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/metadata.htm) and things
like surprise headers and footers from creeping into new documents.

It's a lot of reading, I know. It's OK to chunk it down and do a bit each
day, but I would recommend that you make it a top priority to do that bit
each day. In the (short) long run, it will save you both time and grief.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs which is awesome!

My criminal law site: http://addbalance.com
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