MailMerge vs. Catalog

[Bill Yellin]

Howdy, folks!
I have a variable-length note that I need to print to about 100
people. The variability comes from conditional printing based on data
coming from my data source.

I'll get four or five records per page, then cut them up and
distribute them.

Problem: Using a Mail Merge, I get a new page for each record. I
understand this is standard behaviour for Word, despite the
PageSetup..Layout..SectionStart setting. I can go into the resulting
document and change it to 'Continuous', but when I do this job next
year, who's gonna remember that?

Changed it to a 'Catalog' merge, based on research in this newsgroup.
Now, it works great, except that I can't get the last record on each
page to 'keep together', despite the
Format..Paragraph..LineAndPageBreaks 'Keep with Next' and/or 'Keep
Lines Together' settings.

Any suggestions?

To summarize, I need to print a short variable-length note merged with
data, using the maximum amount of space on each page to minimize
waste. The resulting document needs to be multi-record per page, with
no record's note being broken by a page.

Thanks in advance.....Bill

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Have you definitely tried "Keep Lines Together" /without any/ "Keep With
Next" formatting? If so, when you have merged to your new doucment, do the
paragraphs retain the formatting you specified?

 

[Bill Yellin]

Yes, absolutely. I just tried it again before replying to make sure,
and I have a catalog merge, with my message formatted with
'Widow/Orphan Control' and 'Keep Lines Together' checked and 'Keep
With Next' NOT checked.

I get continuous flow (meaning without a page break between notes),
but the last note on every page is split between pages. It looks like
the 'Keep Lines Together', which is still checked in the new catalog
document, has no effect. In fact, even when I highlight the broken
message across the page break and reset the 'Keep Lines Together', it
doesn't change anything.

So, thanks for responding; any other thoughts?

...............Bill

 

[Peter Jamieson]

My best guess is that you are experiencing the problem described in

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;212061

"WD2000: Inserting a Break Splits "Keep with Next" Paragraphs"

(This may affect other Word versions as well).

If so, you may need to ensure that you have a para. immediately before your
page break that is not "Keep with next".