Mail Merge from Office Address Book: Filter Recipients Problems

[Ologist]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am trying to perform a mail merge in Word 2008 (12.1.2) using my Office Address Book in Entourage. As part of this I am trying to Filter Recipients using the Query Options dialog the open when I click the Options button in the Filter Recipients section of the Mail Merge Manager.

Despite the fact that I have several categories set up and actively associated with contacts in Entourage, when I select the option to list mail merge recipients by Categories my category list always contains None, Junk and a bunch of check boxes with no description to the right of them that presumably represent my actual categories.

Further when I select the option to list mail merge recipients by Complete Record I can see my contacts but clicking on the headers to sort them by the header column value only sorts them by name - either A to Z or Z to A. This behavior is the same no matter what header column I click on.

Anyway, not sure if anyone else has experienced this problem. But it's repeatable and persists from session to session. Anyone have any suggestions on a workaround or know where I can post this to get the developer's attention.

Thanks.

 

[jrw690]

I am having the same problem. I am new to Mac and Office for Mac and put a couple of contacts into Entourage and did a test with mail merge in Word and everything worked just as it should. I clicked on the filter and all the categories were available, I selected the desired category, finished the mail merge and everything was fine. I then entered all of my contacts into Entourage and assigned each the appropriate category. When finished I ran another mail merge and experienced the exact problem you are having. I deleted all the categories (except Junk which could not be deleted) and added more categories. Only the first category that I added shows up in the mail merge filter. However, when I check the unmarked boxes the filter works as it should, I just have to guess at the category because in Entourage they are alphabetized but in the filter they seem to appear in the order in which I created them.

 

[Guest]

I asked Microsoft about this issue and got the following response. Note that in my version when I get to step #2 I click on the arrow after "List mail merge recipients by" and choose "Complete record".

This is a known issue that was discovered recently and is currently in the hands of our development team. When they have a fix for this issue it will be released via an update. So please continue to do your Office 2008 updates.

In the mean time we have discovered a work around for this issue. Please follow these steps.

1. When you get to the point in the merge where you can select the categories, at the top of the screen you will see a drop down.

2. In the drop down select all records, then choose OK

3. Re-open the merge screen and from the drop down go back to choosing categories.

4. All categories should now appear.

 

[Greg]

I too have had these same issues since I "upgraded" to Word 2008 for Mac. I have to create NEW categories to see them. I see a bunch of check boxes, and only SOME of the categories I've created in Entourage. Very inconvenient. I'm also having problems sorting my records after they have been merged or populated into the labels template. When I looked at their site for mail merge instructions, it is indicated that I can click on 'Filter Recipients', then click on the 'Filter Records' tab. But hey, guess what? There is NO 'Filter Records' tab!!! Microsoft makes my life sooo difficult!

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Greg -

Unfortunately the reply from <<unknown sender>> is the best option currently
available to get around the Categories issue.

I believe your other issue is because the Help pertains specifically to
using Excel as the Record Source. Regrettably, Office 2008 Help still a
"work in progress" so it isn't as complete & accurate as anyone would prefer
[or expect ] and doesn't cover use of the Address Book at all. Apparently
the assumption is that a Contact List in the Address Book is or can be
organized in the manner the labels need to be produced. Entourage provides
the Filtering & Sorting capabilities in a more extensive manner & also
allows frequently used specs to be saved rather than having to be recreated
every time you need them.

If you go into the Filter Recipients step of MMM & click Options you can
open the list displaying Categories to choose Complete Record instead. You
can then pick individual records to be included by way of checkboxes and the
column headings can be used to sort the list.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac