Re: Does Word allow more than one source doc for mailmerge?
Word can only use one mail merge data source. In theory it can include other
things as it merges, e.g. using INCLUDETEXT or DATABASE fields.
Word has a number of different ways of getting data from Excel, and what it
can do depends on which method you use.
So for example, if you have one spreadsheet that contains one row for each
customer, and another spreadsheet which contains the detail lines that you
want to include in the invoice, and there is something in the detail line
(such as a CustomerID that can be used to link back to the Customer sheet,
then /in theory/ you could define a merge that
a. used the Customer sheet as its data source
b. used a DATABASE field to list all the detail lines for each customer.
Unfortunately, in practice, this approach can be hard to set up and gives
you almost no control over the layout of your detail lines.
A better approach from a Word Mailmerge point of view is generally to find
some way to "flatten" the data in your sheets so that you have one row for
each line in the invoice, every row contains a customer ID, and at least the
first row for each Customer contains all the other customer data you need.
Then you can use the type of approach described in the following article...
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294686
A better approach altogether might be to get your data into something like
Access and use its reporting capabilities, which are better designed for
this kind of thing (unless you need to e-mail the invoices, in which case
I'm not sure it really gets you much further).
