mail merge from outlook

[John]

Using Outlook 2003 on WinXP

I have contacts in multiple folders that have been assigned to the "Holiday
Cards" category. I'm looking for a way to pull up all of those contacts
regardless of which folder they are in for a mail merge.

The only way I have found to pull up all contacts in that category
regardless of folder is through Advanced Find but there is no mail merge
option from that window.

I also tried originating the merge from Word but could not find the data
file that way.

It seems like there must be a simple way to do this.

Thanks

 

[Gordon]

Using Outlook 2003 on WinXP

I have contacts in multiple folders that have been assigned to the
"Holiday Cards" category. I'm looking for a way to pull up all of those
contacts regardless of which folder they are in for a mail merge.

The only way I have found to pull up all contacts in that category
regardless of folder is through Advanced Find but there is no mail merge
option from that window.

I also tried originating the merge from Word but could not find the data
file that way.

Can you not View By Category in your Contacts folder?
BTW, one of the main advantages of categories is that you don't NEED
sub-folders....

 

[John]

If I do that it only shows the contacts within that folder that are assigned
to the category. I'm looking for a way to show all contacts assigned to a
certain category regardless of which folder they are in.

I also tried Customize View but it doesn't seem to have any option for
specifying folders. Advanced Find does, but there's no mail merge option
from that screen.

BTW I do need multiple folders. I have a few businesses and also a folder
for personal contacts. I don't ever need all of those jumbled together in
one folder.

Thanks

 

[Gordon]

BTW I do need multiple folders. I have a few businesses and also a folder
for personal contacts. I don't ever need all of those jumbled together in
one folder.

Doesn't matter if you use categories properly......

 

[John]

Just let me know when you can get here to re-organize the thousands of
contacts in my database. Hopefully before Christmas. Keep in mind that
within folders the contacts are assigned to categories that relate to that
business, group, etc.

I forgot to mention that I am a member of two organizations whose contacts I
like to keep on my computer and I manage a mailing list for a charity. I'm
sure Microsoft put those folder options in there for a reason...

Thank you

 

[John]

As it turns out, the real answer is to do an Advanced Search, then click
Edit > Select All, then click Edit > Copy To Folder, create a new folder and
copy the advanced search results into it. Then what you'll have is a
duplicate of all of the desired entries in one folder, so you can easily do
the mail merge. You can delete the folder when you are finished with the
merge.

Thank you