Mail Merge in Office X Problem

[M Landman]

I am attempting to print a mail merge to a new Savin from my new iMac.
It is a two page merge, but I commonly need to do three to five page
merges. The merge needs to print with page one from the letterhead
tray and the other pages from the regular tray. When I print, the
entire print job is sent combined. This in turn gives me the first
page of the entire print job on letter head and each following page
from my other bin. I have tried to split the merge into sections with
page 1 restarting at the section and with line numbers restarting as
well. This has no impact on the result. I am wondering if Office 2004
fixes this or if it is a driver problem or if I can put a postscript
command in to force a draw from my letter head tray. Any help would be
appreciated.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Let me restate, to be sure we are understanding correctly:

You do a letter mail merge, that produces say 25 two-page letters to
different people, all in the same file. You want all the first pages of
each merge to print on letterhead. You can get Word to print the very first
page of the file on letterhead, but it won't print the first page of each
letter on letterhead.

Well, I'm not sure. I do know that whatever you did with sections must have
been totally confusing, because when Word produces a letter mail merge, it
already puts a section break between each letter. And sets things like page
number to restart with each letter, and I would assume line numbers as well.

So I wonder if you might have set Word to do a catalog merge instead, which
does *not* insert section breaks between each letter. To see whether the
section breaks are there, either switch into Normal View or hit command-8 to
see grey ¶s.

You are right that getting section breaks between the letters is the first
step in solving the issue--each section should get sent to the printer as a
separate print job, so presumably the setting to draw the first page from
letterhead feed will carry over to each section though I have not tested
this myself.

It sounds like this used to work for you until you got a new printer? You
have installed the latest driver for that exact printer, correct?

What exact version of Office X do you have?
http://mcgimpsey.com/macoffice/office/vxversions.html

DM

 

[M Landman]

Hi, Sorry for the double post. I didn't realize that posts didn't go
straight to the board.... my mistake.
First off: Office Version 10.1.2

Second: You are correct about what I am attempting to print. First
page of every record from letterhead, page 2-?? from regular paper. I
did do the standard print merge (as opposed to the catalog merge) and
am viewing the invisibles like carriage returns etc. The sections do
split out and line numbers restart, but the print job is still sent as
one job not individual jobs based on section number.

Third: I don't think the problem is the printer as it prints
incorrectly (with page 1 of the job from letter head and all other
pages from regular tray) to both a Savin 3828 and Lexmark Optra T. I
am replacing an old wintel box that didn't have any problems handling
the printing to the Lexmark. However, I have switched all the printers
to Postscript only (since there are no more wintel machines printing to
them), could that impact the issue? Or is there a postscript command
that I could put in a header to force a print job break?

I'm sure with any problem there are a number of solutions. However, I
have a sneaky feeling I'll need to brute force it with either a Word
Macro, Applescript, or Postscript command. I guess I'm not sure which
will be the most elegant and require the lease ammount of putzing to
make work.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

[Perhaps someone else who knows more about mail merge, printing, and network
printing, will chime in on this thread]

Yeeeessss....I was afraid you would confirm the sections are set up
properly...and they are "next page" section breaks, not continuous, right?

There's no way I know enough about printing or mailmerge to really be
helpful, and to be honest, I don't think this newsgroup has heard one way or
another whether Word X can actually do this or if it is in fact a bug in the
program, and I haven't a clue whether WinWord does it without extra prompts
either. But I see a few things my total inexperience suggests you might
try.

One would be updating, Office is now at 10.1.6. For sure, in the infancy of
OS X (which Office X was), there were lots of printing issues, so it is not
unrealistic to think 10.1.6 might help.

Another would be the printer driver--does switching the printers to
Postscript mean that you *aren't* using the printer driver for your exact
printer, as distributed by the manufacturer? I would test both the exact
printer driver and a generic one.

Since there are lots of complaints about the opposite problem (that certain
types of section breaks in Word files create multiple PDF files), I would
think there is already a signifier built into the Word file and that it's a
problem of the printer driver not recognizing it and acting on it. But I
don't really know.

I can't believe (if it's a bug) that you are the only person with this
problem, yet Google does not appear to have turned up much. You might want
to search the web and other Mac/Apple newsgroups/forums more intensively
than I did.

There is also a Word mailmerge newsgroup
(microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields) which *might* be helpful as to
whether "this should just work" or how to build a Word macro or postscript
command. They won't know anything about Mac, though, and you will need to
be specific about your questions to prevent them just sending you back here.

Since I don't know much about this and am not much for programming, probably
the first "brute force" approach I would try would be whether entering "s1,
s2, s3.." (e.g., deliberately telling Word to print each section as a
section) in the Print Range box fixed the issue, and if so, try to work out
an automated way to enter that (probably applescript with a call to VBA in
the middle to count the sections).

DM

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

There is also a Word mailmerge newsgroup
(microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields) which *might* be helpful as to
whether "this should just work" or how to build a Word macro or postscript
command. They won't know anything about Mac, though, and you will need to
be specific about your questions to prevent them just sending you back here.

I think Mac Word's Data Merge Manager is different form WinWord's MailMerge.

Since I don't know much about this and am not much for programming, probably
the first "brute force" approach I would try would be whether entering "s1,
s2, s3.." (e.g., deliberately telling Word to print each section as a
section) in the Print Range box fixed the issue, and if so, try to work out
an automated way to enter that (probably applescript with a call to VBA in
the middle to count the sections).

There would be absolutely no need to call VBA in the middle in Word 2004 -
except this is Word X, not 2004. AppleScript would have to be done by 'do
Visual Basic' - so might as well just do it as a VBA macro and save the
problem of converting it.

It really does sound like a bug to me. Doing a workaround to loop through
each iteration of a merge printing each section separately might not be
possible with a partially=formed Data Merge. You might have to end up doing
the equivalent o a merge programmatically. The VBA people (some of whom do
hang out at microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields but might be out in
greater numbers at microsoft.public.word.vba.general) may be able to help,
if you can find the same VBA methods in Mac Word.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[M Landman]

Ok, now this is going to bake your noodles...

1. I updated to word 10.1.6
2. After hours of toying with it, I got a merged document to work.
The merged document prints correctly each time when I print to pdf or
to the printer (because, it sends it as individual print jobs, as
suspected)

3. Here is where it gets wierd. I can't seem to replicate it! I have
tried with multiple source files, databases etc. and cannot get Word to
do it again.

4. Now, here is where insanity sets in... I duplicated the file and
printed it, no problem. I went to formet-document and pushed the
"default" button to seemingly "reset" the document to Normal. Printed,
no problem. I try to do the same thing to my other merged files to
print and they still fail to distribute properly. I'm wondering if it
isn't worth upgrading to Office 2004 and hoping that it solves the
issue. I know that v.X can handle it correctly, it just a matter of
constraining the variables to find out what makes it work. I think
I'll drop the cash and hope 2004 makes it a bit easier. I'll be sure
to let you know how that all works out.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

print and they still fail to distribute properly. I'm wondering if it
isn't worth upgrading to Office 2004 and hoping that it solves the
issue. I know that v.X can handle it correctly, it just a matter of
constraining the variables to find out what makes it work. I think
I'll drop the cash and hope 2004 makes it a bit easier. I'll be sure
to let you know how that all works out.

Yikes! You're gonna spend hundreds on *hoping* something works? What is
*with* people and software that they always think this is a good idea?

DM

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Yikes! You're gonna spend hundreds on *hoping* something works? What is
*with* people and software that they always think this is a good idea?

There is a 30-day free demo (Test Drive) of course... Not to mention lots
else that great about 2004.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[M Landman]

I took the test drive... looks great, but NO PRINTING!!!! Kind of
ticked me off, but I understand why it is that way. I really don't
have any other choice and Word has already demonstrated that it can
accomplish what I need, so I'm going to hedge that Office 2004 will be
a bit more elegant, or at least give me free support from Microsoft (as
opposed to $35 per call.) Considering that my time is also worth
something, I figure I'll drop a few hundred on an update and make a
decision from there.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Yes, exceedingly strange....

4. Now, here is where insanity sets in... I duplicated the file and
printed it, no problem. I went to formet-document and pushed the
"default" button to seemingly "reset" the document to Normal.

That isn't what that button does, by the way. It will just change your
default margins or other layout settings.

Printed,
no problem. I try to do the same thing to my other merged files to
print and they still fail to distribute properly.

You could try a corrupt doc fix on some of the other merged files, to force
Word to rebuild the structure of the doc and maybe that will put the "new
print job" flags back in. (this is closer to "resetting to Normal")
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/DocumentCorruption.htm
(hit reload a few times in Safari, if that doesn't work, try Explorer)

I think
I'll drop the cash and hope 2004 makes it a bit easier. I'll be sure
to let you know how that all works out.

Please do, with luck your experience will help someone else.
DM