insert plain text into pre-existing table

[madhg]

I have a Word document with a table set up (to print mailing labels,
in 2 columns). And a plain text document with addresses. I'd like to
insert the addresses into the Word table, _without_ using Mail
Merge.

I've searched this group and haven't found this particular question
(though many somewhat similar ones).

Can I manipulate the text file in such a way that I can paste the text
into the Word doc.with each address on a different label?

Thanks in advance for any help,
David

The plain text doc has this format; different addresses have different
numbers of lines.

A person
33 streetname
town
county
postcode

A N Other
56 streetname
Town
county
postcode
country

 

[Peter A]

I have a Word document with a table set up (to print mailing labels,
in 2 columns). And a plain text document with addresses. I'd like to
insert the addresses into the Word table, _without_ using Mail
Merge.

I've searched this group and haven't found this particular question
(though many somewhat similar ones).

Can I manipulate the text file in such a way that I can paste the text
into the Word doc.with each address on a different label?

Thanks in advance for any help,
David

The plain text doc has this format; different addresses have different
numbers of lines.

A person
33 streetname
town
county
postcode

A N Other
56 streetname
Town
county
postcode
country

Word has a command to convert text to a table. Table, Convert, Text to
Table in Word 2003. If you look in the help system you will find the
details on how your text should be set up for this command to work
properly.

 

[madhg]

Word has a command to convert text to a table. Table, Convert, Text to
Table in Word 2003. If you look in the help system you will find the
details on how your text should be set up for this command to work

Thanks for your reply. I have Word 2000, and know about Convert Text
to Table. It creates a table from existing text. That table would
not be of the right size and shape to print out on to address labels.

What I would like to do is paste text into a _pre-existing_ table in
such a way that it flows into cells of the table in a controllable
way. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear.

By the way, in Word 2000, as far as I know, if the text is arranged in
a single column, Convert Text to Table produces a table with one
column. That's no good to me.

Thanks again for your reply,
David

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Assuming that the "blank lines" in your example represent empty paragraphs
(and that each line in the address block is also a paragraph), use Replace
to replace ^p (paragraph break) with ^l (line break). Then replace ^l^l (two
line breaks) with ^p. This will put each address block in a single
paragraph. Then use Table | Convert | Text to Table to convert your text
into a table, separating at paragraph marks. The number of columns Word will
suggest will not be correct; change the number to the number of labels
across.

Before starting this, you will have set the margins of your document to
match the margins on the label sheet. Now select the table rows you've
created and set the row height to exactly the height (in inches) of the
labels. Once you've done that, your table will match the label table, and
you can just copy/paste to append the new rows to the existing ones.

 

[Peter A]

Thanks for your reply. I have Word 2000, and know about Convert Text
to Table. It creates a table from existing text. That table would
not be of the right size and shape to print out on to address labels.

What I would like to do is paste text into a _pre-existing_ table in
such a way that it flows into cells of the table in a controllable
way. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear.

By the way, in Word 2000, as far as I know, if the text is arranged in
a single column, Convert Text to Table produces a table with one
column. That's no good to me.

Thanks again for your reply,
David

I understood what you wanted - but I thought if you could first convert
the text to a table then you could modify the table to suit your labels.
I know of no way to paste a bunch of text into a table so that different
sections of the text go into different cells - I suppose you could write
a macro, but that's a question for a VBA group.

 

[madhg]

I understood what you wanted - but I thought if you could first convert
the text to a table then you could modify the table to suit your labels.
I know of no way to paste a bunch of text into a table so that different
sections of the text go into different cells - I suppose you could write
a macro, but that's a question for a VBA group.

Aha, many thanks, Suzanne, I now see how to do it. And apologies to
Peter, your suggestion was along the right lines, and I didn't know as
much about Text to Table as I thought I did - in particular, that you
can increase the number of columns and the content will be arranged
sensibly in the 2-column table.

David