Merge to Three Different Letters Depending on the Value in TermYear

[Lynda]

Hi:

I hope you can help me with this one. I have a dataset of records (.csv
file) and I want to have certain letters created in mail merge based on the
value in the TermYear field of each of these records. In other words, if
TermYear is Spring, merge to Spring letter, otherwise merge to Fall letter.
Currently, I have created a letter that just has an IF/THEN?Else statement
that grabs the correct letter and merges to it. I find this somewhat
awkward though and wondered if there is a better way to accomplish this.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Lynda

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Longer term it will probably be better to set up one letter (i.e. Mailmerge
main document) for each term, and use the Mailmerge Recipients dialog
(depends on the version of Word) to select the applicable records. Within
that dialog, select the little drop-down at the top of the TermYear field
and select what you need (what does the field actually contain? Does it
contain a year and a term, or just a term?). You may need to select the
Advanced... option there which leads to another dialog box where you can set
up the criteria.

Once you have made the selection, save the mail merge main document, close
it, and re-open it to ensure that your selections have not been lost or
altered (Word does not have a particularly good track record in this area).
Then test the merge (e.g. by merging to a new document).

Peter Jamieson

 

[Lynda]

Thanks for your help with this. Your solution does not work in my case
because the csv file has so many fields that the headers disappear in the
recipient list so it is not possible to see the dropdown and hence restrict
the list based on the value in that field.

I cannot load the csv into Excel or Access either because there are too many
fields.

Lynda

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Which version of Word?

 

[Lynda]

I am using Word 2003.

Lynda

Which version of Word?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

OK, I'm not sure precisely what you are seeing but here each column in the
Mail Merge Recipients is wide enough to accommodate the title, but if you
need to scroll sideways to find the field you want to filter on, the column
headers do disappear after a few hundred columns. Stuff like that. If that's
what's happening it should be OK to select the first column, click the
dropdown, click (Advanced...), then enter the expression you want in the
Query Options|Filter records dialog.

If you are seeing something else, let us know.

 

[Lynda]

Hi Peter:

Thanks! You solved my problem. Your solution is exactly the one I was
looking for.

Lynda