Is Mailmerge the best for what I'm trying to do????

[rbecker]

At my company we use two-part carbonless work orders for all of the jobs that
we do. There are some reoccuring jobs that we have to write up each month.
I have those listed in an excel spreadsheet. I know that I can use that
spreadsheet as the data source for a mail merge and I was wanting to get it
set up so that I can print these work orders every month instead of
handwritting them, which can be a MAJOR pain. I am wondering if I can get my
work order scanned in to the computer and use it for my "master" but not have
it print. In other words can I have a background with mail merge that
doesn't print so that the only thing that will print will be the data from
the spreadsheet? The background would only be there so that I could position
the data in the correct location to print on pre-printed work orders.
Hopefully all of that makes sense.

Also, is there a way to determine the space that the data takes up in the
merged document so that if the data won't fit as is in the space that the
text would shrink to fit the space?

I should also mention that I am learning about mail merge as I go so I am
soooo green on the terminology and mechanics of using it.

Thanks!
Becky

 

[Graham Mayor]

You can certainly scan the form and set it behind text at 100% size in the
header (you may get a warning about margins). You should set up the text
areas in fixed size bortderless table cells so they don't grow.
Automatically adjusting the font size is not possible (it might be if you do
the job in Publisher? - maybe JoAnn could confirm if she is watching)
Layout the form then remove the image.
http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_labels_with_word_xp.htm should help with
the merge issues.
If you can get your hands on a copy, ABBYY Finereader 6 Corporate version
had a very handy form filling tool that could fill scanned forms from manual
or Excel data input. They appear to have dropped it from the current
version

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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