Mass formatting a document?

[Joyce]

I want to format an entire document without having to point at all the
various lines using Styles. Sample info below shows text & how I want to
format the entire LENGTHY docment. Anyone have a solution?

CLASSIFICATION1 (Bold, Box or Underline, Arial Black 12)

Company Name1 (Bold, Arial 10)
Location1/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)
Location2/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)

Company Name2 (Bold, Arial 10)
Location/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)

This is a "Buyers' Guide" publication. I have 100 Classifications, 1 to 40
Companies per classification, and the companies can have 1 to 25 locations.
The info comes from my database in a plain text file just as it's shown
above. I need to format before publication. IS THIS DO-ABLE?? (Note:
Identifiers can be added easily to the plain text file in the database to
denote Classification, Company & Location lines when it's first prepared.)

 

[macropod]

Hi Joyce,

Probably the easiest way to do this is to run a Word mailmerge (possibly, just a Catalog/Directory merge if all you need is a
formatted list) against your database, with the various mergefields formatted with either the character attributes or (preferably)
Styles you want.

 

[Joyce]

Macropod:

Thanks for responding to my question so quickly!

My info is in a .dos database. I can export it by field into an excel
format. Should I give that a try with "mail merge"?

(Gosh - this sounds fascinating and something I wouldn't have thought of!)

Hi Joyce,

Probably the easiest way to do this is to run a Word mailmerge (possibly, just a Catalog/Directory merge if all you need is a
formatted list) against your database, with the various mergefields formatted with either the character attributes or (preferably)
Styles you want.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]

I want to format an entire document without having to point at all the
various lines using Styles. Sample info below shows text & how I want to
format the entire LENGTHY docment. Anyone have a solution?

CLASSIFICATION1 (Bold, Box or Underline, Arial Black 12)

Company Name1 (Bold, Arial 10)
Location1/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)
Location2/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)

Company Name2 (Bold, Arial 10)
Location/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)

This is a "Buyers' Guide" publication. I have 100 Classifications, 1 to 40
Companies per classification, and the companies can have 1 to 25 locations.
The info comes from my database in a plain text file just as it's shown
above. I need to format before publication. IS THIS DO-ABLE?? (Note:
Identifiers can be added easily to the plain text file in the database to
denote Classification, Company & Location lines when it's first prepared.)

 

[macropod]

Hi Joyce,

An Excel file or a Word table should work fine as the data source. You'll need to make sure you have a separate field (column) for
each Company Name, Location1/Phone and Location2/Phone entry.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]

Macropod:

Thanks for responding to my question so quickly!

My info is in a .dos database. I can export it by field into an excel
format. Should I give that a try with "mail merge"?

(Gosh - this sounds fascinating and something I wouldn't have thought of!)

Hi Joyce,

Probably the easiest way to do this is to run a Word mailmerge (possibly, just a Catalog/Directory merge if all you need is a
formatted list) against your database, with the various mergefields formatted with either the character attributes or
(preferably)
Styles you want.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]

I want to format an entire document without having to point at all the
various lines using Styles. Sample info below shows text & how I want to
format the entire LENGTHY docment. Anyone have a solution?

CLASSIFICATION1 (Bold, Box or Underline, Arial Black 12)

Company Name1 (Bold, Arial 10)
Location1/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)
Location2/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)

Company Name2 (Bold, Arial 10)
Location/Phone (Normal or italic, Arial 10)

This is a "Buyers' Guide" publication. I have 100 Classifications, 1 to 40
Companies per classification, and the companies can have 1 to 25 locations.
The info comes from my database in a plain text file just as it's shown
above. I need to format before publication. IS THIS DO-ABLE?? (Note:
Identifiers can be added easily to the plain text file in the database to
denote Classification, Company & Location lines when it's first prepared.)