Merge from Entourage to Word - selection criteria

[Chris Hutcheson]

Hi there.

I am trying to merge from Entourage to envelopes. I had hoped I would be
able to define who I wanted included in the merge by "flagging" the selected
contacts, but I can't get this to work. In the end I had to assign a unique
category to this group, which meant deleting the categories I had already
assigned to them.

This seems to be a pretty glaring omission.

Is there any way to get flagging to work, or some other alternative to
changing categories? I can't seem to get Entourage to export a subset
either.

Thanks!
Chris Hutcheson

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Funny, someone just asked that the other day.

In Word, in the Data Merge Manager palette, you need to click on Query
Options, *after* selecting the Office Address Book as your data source. The
dropdown for "list by category" also offers "list all records" and you
should be able to check and uncheck what you want (using category in this
dialog does *not* require a unique category).

How did you get it working with the category, if not Query Options?

It is a glaring omission in the Help that the topic that tells you how to do
this "Select specific records from the Office Address Book" is not linked
from related help topics, and doesn't come up in response to search for Data
Merge.

It also seems to me that the Query Options button properly belongs in the
Data Source section of the Data Merge palette.

 

[Chris Hutcheson]

Thanks for the information!

I had considered that approach.What I had hoped I would be able to do is
similar to the "mark" option in Now Contact. I would like to be able to do
the sort on the flagged content, because I can then retain the selection,
which I suspect I can't with the approach you're suggesting.

I also tried setting up a project for this list. At least that way I can
retain the list and if contacts are on different projects that's OK, since I
can have multiple projects linked to contacts.

OF course, I still don't seem to be able to restrict the merge to a specific
project either. I'm finding that the lack of options for managing contacts
is pretty pathetic.

Thanks again for your suggestions though.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm not really sure what you are talking about:
Mark option in Now contact?
Retain the selection?
Sort on flagged content?

but you can mark the contacts in Entourage with a category, then merge in
Word using all contacts in that category. This does not require deleting
other category information, contacts can have a multitude of categories, and
using cmd-select in the list of contacts in Erage will let you apply the
categories pretty easily.

Alternatively, ask in the entourage ng whether an applescript would apply a
category based on certain criteria, say belonging to a certain project.

Having to apply a category is an annoying interim step, but it seems to me
that you can get pretty infinite flexibility from that, and retain the
selection, at the price of having useless categories, e.g.
"zMonthlyMailingList". You can mark contacts, retain the selection, and sort
on it by using a special category (assuming I understand what you want to
do).

Making project information accessible from the Query Options dialog is an
excellent suggestion and I suggest you submit it via Send Feedback, with
specifics on what you'd like to be able to do.
If complete record also listed groups, that would be another efficient way
to do what you want, perhaps.

DM