Merge Questions

[Christophe S. Borg]

Hi All,

My Setup: I have templates (word documents) and variable pages in for of
excel files. Fields are setup in the templates to render the variables.

I got a few questions:
1. Is it possible to get the final merge document directly by
selecting the template and the data source (without having to preview).
2. Is it possible to generate documents from multiple templates from
one datasource.

Thanks for your help

C.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi All,

My Setup: I have templates (word documents) and variable pages in for of
excel files. Fields are setup in the templates to render the variables.

I got a few questions:
1. Is it possible to get the final merge document directly by
selecting the template and the data source (without having to preview).

Yes. The Tools -> Data merge manager panel controls that. You either
merge to new document - which concatenates them all into one enormous
file, or merge to printer, which does as you ask.

2. Is it possible to generate documents from multiple templates from
one datasource.

If I understand you correctly, Absolutely. I use that technique to do
many flavours of letters and their envelopes. Just name the same Excel
file in each template. I think you can only have one template per
document though.

 

[Christophe S. Borg]

Yes. The Tools -> Data merge manager panel controls that. You either
merge to new document - which concatenates them all into one enormous
file, or merge to printer, which does as you ask.

If I understand you correctly, Absolutely. I use that technique to do
many flavours of letters and their envelopes. Just name the same Excel
file in each template. I think you can only have one template per
document though.

Thanks for your response but on #1, what I want to do is completely
bypass opening the template and directly generate the new document (get
directly to the result of pressing merge to new document). On #2, it
would be an extension of #1 so to create directly merged documents
simultaneously (as if picked from the open dialog box).

Thanks Again

C.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Thanks for your response but on #1, what I want to do is completely
bypass opening the template and directly generate the new document (get
directly to the result of pressing merge to new document). On #2, it
would be an extension of #1 so to create directly merged documents
simultaneously (as if picked from the open dialog box).

Thanks Again

OK. I am less help on that. I imagine a savage macro inside a template
would do most of what you want. I don't quite understand why you would
bother going to so much trouble to avoid half a dozen keystrokes and a
click or two. Maybe if you describe the whole reason why you want to
have such a slick merger-ooney, someone will come up with a better way.

 

[Chris Borg]

OK. I am less help on that. I imagine a savage macro inside a template
would do most of what you want. I don't quite understand why you would
bother going to so much trouble to avoid half a dozen keystrokes and a
click or two. Maybe if you describe the whole reason why you want to
have such a slick merger-ooney, someone will come up with a better way.

I am developing a solution for a company which need to generate hundred
of merge doc a day. So I remove 1 click over a few hundred merge, it is
a lot of time.

Thanks

 

[Elliott Roper]

I am developing a solution for a company which need to generate hundred
of merge doc a day. So I remove 1 click over a few hundred merge, it is
a lot of time.

That's got the makings of an interesting problem. Give us a bit more of
a clue of what you are merging to and from. Do you have a database of
addressees that is fairly constant? Do you have rapidly changing data
that needs to be merged into a document depending on who's getting it?

My way of dealing with that would be sneaky conditional Word merge
fields and sly Excel 'data bases'. The combination can be quite
powerful.

 

[Chris Borg]

That's got the makings of an interesting problem. Give us a bit more of
a clue of what you are merging to and from. Do you have a database of
addressees that is fairly constant? Do you have rapidly changing data
that needs to be merged into a document depending on who's getting it?

My way of dealing with that would be sneaky conditional Word merge
fields and sly Excel 'data bases'. The combination can be quite
powerful.

I got the system already using excel for the data sources. The data is
rapidly changing (mortgage data).

The data is inserted in loan applications templates.

Let me know if you need more info

C.

 

[Elliott Roper]

I got the system already using excel for the data sources. The data is
rapidly changing (mortgage data).

The data is inserted in loan applications templates.

Let me know if you need more info

Are you trying to merge from one template into another? Like a form for
someone to fill in and send back and that form has the latest interest
rates inserted before it heads off to be filled in? Does the form
already have the address in? Forgive me. I'm still confused. If I'm way
off base and looking useless, please tell me to go away.

 

[Chris Borg]

Are you trying to merge from one template into another? Like a form for
someone to fill in and send back and that form has the latest interest
rates inserted before it heads off to be filled in? Does the form
already have the address in? Forgive me. I'm still confused. If I'm way
off base and looking useless, please tell me to go away.

Here how it goes:
- I get data of the customer.
- Data inserted into an excel data-source.
- that data is then merged into a template document (the loan app).

I am trying to remove the set when you need to open the template and
click merge to merge the document.

PS. Do you know anything about the path limitation for the data-source;
I have data-sources on the network but Word keep saying it does not find
then (If the data-sources are on the local machine, it works fine)

Thanks for you help

C.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Here how it goes:
- I get data of the customer.
- Data inserted into an excel data-source.
- that data is then merged into a template document (the loan app).

I am trying to remove the set when you need to open the template and
click merge to merge the document.

OK, I understand. It is something I would like to be able to do too. I
will experiment over the weekend. If I think up something good.....

PS. Do you know anything about the path limitation for the data-source;
I have data-sources on the network but Word keep saying it does not find
then (If the data-sources are on the local machine, it works fine)

Yep, that's worth looking at too. I don't know the answer yet. I can
experiment with both. I guess you have different users updating the
Excel and despatching the load application letters.

I'm thinking along the lines of macros in Word and Excel.

New loan application data is entered into Excel and automatically
marked as not yet printed.

Word asks for the Excel and when it is free it grabs it, merges all the
outstanding applications to the printer or whatever and then hands the
Excel back by firing off a macro that marks the new entries as printed,
perhaps logging the print time. You could extend that with extra
columns, so returned applications and follow-up letters could be
tracked and organised.
Quite an interesting project. I'll see how we go. ;-)

 

[Chris Borg]

OK, I understand. It is something I would like to be able to do too. I
will experiment over the weekend. If I think up something good.....

Yep, that's worth looking at too. I don't know the answer yet. I can
experiment with both. I guess you have different users updating the
Excel and despatching the load application letters.

I'm thinking along the lines of macros in Word and Excel.

New loan application data is entered into Excel and automatically
marked as not yet printed.

Word asks for the Excel and when it is free it grabs it, merges all the
outstanding applications to the printer or whatever and then hands the
Excel back by firing off a macro that marks the new entries as printed,
perhaps logging the print time. You could extend that with extra
columns, so returned applications and follow-up letters could be
tracked and organised.
Quite an interesting project. I'll see how we go. ;-)

Thanks