Letter AND Merge by Category

[Emmett]

I am using Word 2000.

I want to produce a form letter, which is followed by data sorted by category.
The format should appear somewhat like this:

Address Info

Dear Mr. "Name of Sales Manager":

Letter body

Sincerely,

Me @ My company

(page break)

User ID City # of Sales User Status
53 L.A. 15 Current
54 S.F. 3 Pending

***

There will be 1 to 60 entries depending on the recipient.

*****

I followed the directions on how to sort by Category in the KB and I get a
statement like "field does not exist" on some of them. Also, when I
terminate the merge, it converts my If statements back to simply the
FieldName. (In other words, I followed the example, but inserted my own
field names

I have seen previous messages that the merge should just be done in Access,
but shouldn't it be possible to perform similar functions in both Word and
Access.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See
http://cornell.veplan.net/article.aspx?&a=3815


--
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

 

[Emmett]

Hi,

I played around with the instructions you sent me, but when I try to merge,
it produces an error.

The constant in the mail merge is the Sales Manager name. Besides creating
an additional page with each record that says 'Conditional error on merge!',
it is not categorizing multiple entries for the same sales manager, but
rather printing a separate letter for each set regardless (meaning that a
list is not created, and it is doing the same thing I would get if I didn't
type in all the code - except the code would not produce the 'this is an
error' page).

Having used the example exactly (but using my own fields as substitutes), I
am thinking that there are several options to why this does not work:

1. Word 2000 does not utilize this function (or recognize it)

2. I am not putting quotes (" ") in the proper places.

The instructions explain about the quotes, but there are inconsistencies as
to where they should go. I am not sure if I am putting in too many quotes or
leaving them out.

Example: SET Donor1 {Mergefield "Donor"}

I typed this in as SET SM1 {Mergefield SM}, assuming that the quotes are
referring to what the actual name is and not that I should put it in quotes,
but since the usage of quotes is not consistent, I don't know if I used them
properly.

3. The use of multiple pages.

The sales information does not go in the body of the letter, but on a
separate page after the body of the letter. I still followed the directions
and copied everything after the last merge information was completed (so it
is 4 pages, instead of the 2 specified in the example).

4. The use of multiple fields.

This shouldn't be an issue, but the example is basically Donor and Donation,
with different donations per Donor. Mine has UserID, City, #ofSales, and
Status. Even though each of these sets has the SalesManager field in common,
it didn't select them as separate.

If it cannot be done, I understand. It would just be easier to do all in
Word, linking to whatever outside source, than to have to convert and
reformat in another program.

Thanks,

Emmett

 

[Peter Jamieson]

The general approach should work, but the devil is in the detail.

You might want to try the slightly different set of fields I've suggested in
the nearby conversation with Suzanne.

Besides creating

an additional page with each record that says 'Conditional error on
merge!',

I suggest you post your merge fields here. The one thing you do need to be
sure of is that every pair of { } are not the ordinary characters you can
type on the keyboard, but the special field code braces that you can insert
using ctrl-F9

it is not categorizing multiple entries for the same sales manager, but
rather printing a separate letter for each set regardless

Have you defiinitely set this up as a "Catalog merge" (which is what it's
called in Word 2000 - I think the article uses the later name, "Directory
Merge"

1. Word 2000 does not utilize this function (or recognize it)

It works in more or less the same way.

2. I am not putting quotes (" ") in the proper places.

The instructions explain about the quotes, but there are inconsistencies
as
to where they should go. I am not sure if I am putting in too many quotes
or
leaving them out.

Example: SET Donor1 {Mergefield "Donor"}

Yes, this is not always straightforward. Generally speaking, you can omit
the quotes around names used in MERGEFIELD fields (i.e. { MERGEFIELD Donor }
should be OK) if there are no spaces or other special characters in the name
(no, I can't tell you what all those other special characters might be, but
they don't include the twenty-six unaccented latin alphabet characters in
the ANSI character set, for example).

Generally speaking you should put quotes around things that are string
values being compared in an IF field, and around results in the IF field.
They aren't always necessary, but IMO it is good programming practice to
include them. There are cases in which they are required, and not many cases
in which they actually cause problems.

What you do need to do in this case is ensure that those { } around the
MERGEFIELD field are special field code braces.

3. The use of multiple pages.

Probably best if you check through my nearby conversation with Suzanne. The
key thing to note is that you can put page break characters inside the
results of the IF field.

4. The use of multiple fields.

I suspect that this will become clearer as your sort out the other stuff.