Merging Picture with Mail Merge

[Jeremy Conlin]

I am creating an address/phone book for my church.  I have all the data

in Excel and I will do a "Mail Merge" into Word.  However, one of the

columns of data contains paths to jpeg files of pictures.  I would
like 
to merge these with the other data.  I tried to use
{ INCLUDEPICTURE "/Users/my/path/to/{ MERGEFIELD Photo}" \* MERGEFORMAT }
but this didn't work. When I "merged to a new document", I just got,
{ INCLUDEPICTURE "/Users/my/path/to/Picture.jpg" \* MERGEFORMAT }

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks, 
Jeremy

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Jeremy:

Microsoft Word MVP Cindy Meister is our international Queen of Mail Merge.
Her website here: http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MergFram.htm

Has extensive information on mail merging, and the first item in Special
Merges, "Graphic from a Database" will answer your question. If you need
any further information, you can talk to Cindy directly in the
microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields newsgroup.

Best not to tell them you're on a Macintosh: you won't throw Cindy off
track, she's quite Mac-literate, but some of the other literati in that
newsgroup will get themselves into a muddle trying to answer you. Take the
PC Word answer and translate it yourself: most of it will work

We need to be aware that Microsoft Office on the Mac is a cut-down of the
real thing, and when you get into power-user features such as mail merge,
you will find various things don't work properly or are simply "not there".

For things such as a church newsletter, if you are using Mac Office
Professional, you have a copy of Virtual PC. Look in the remainder bin at
your local computer store or EBAY for a cheap copy of PC Word (Word 2000 or
anything later will be fine...) and drop it into VPC: job done.

Serious mail merging requires more horsepower than you will get from VPC so
this is not an available option for large jobs.

Cheers

I am creating an address/phone book for my church.  I have all the data

in Excel and I will do a "Mail Merge" into Word.  However, one of thecolumns of data contains paths to jpeg files of pictures.  I would

like

to merge these with the other data.  I tried to use

{ INCLUDEPICTURE "/Users/my/path/to/{ MERGEFIELD Photo}" \* MERGEFORMAT }
but this didn't work. When I "merged to a new document", I just got,
{ INCLUDEPICTURE "/Users/my/path/to/Picture.jpg" \* MERGEFORMAT }

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks, Jeremy

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I think it's possible that

1) Cindy might not be able to help here and

2) I think the problem is precisely to do with Mac issues.

By all means do check with Cindy if the following does not help, and I
would agree 100% with John that whatever is required on Windows, with the
exception of the path to the file, should work also on Word Mac.

But it may be entirely that you are using the wrong path. You are using a
Unix type of slash-delimited file path. As far as I know, Word Mac always,
and still, uses traditional colon-delimited file paths that must begin with
the hard disk name. So try it with:

{ INCLUDEPICTURE "Macintosh HD:Users:myath:to:{ MERGEFIELD Photo}" \*
MERGEFORMAT }


(using your actual startup disk name) and see if that helps. If not, ask
Cindy for help, then use it with the correct type of Mac path.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 11:11:55 -0700
Conversation: Merging Picture with Mail Merge
Subject: Re: Merging Picture with Mail Merge

Hi Jeremy:

Microsoft Word MVP Cindy Meister is our international Queen of Mail Merge.
Her website here: http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MergFram.htm

Has extensive information on mail merging, and the first item in Special
Merges, "Graphic from a Database" will answer your question. If you need
any further information, you can talk to Cindy directly in the
microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields newsgroup.

Best not to tell them you're on a Macintosh: you won't throw Cindy off
track, she's quite Mac-literate, but some of the other literati in that
newsgroup will get themselves into a muddle trying to answer you. Take the
PC Word answer and translate it yourself: most of it will work

We need to be aware that Microsoft Office on the Mac is a cut-down of the
real thing, and when you get into power-user features such as mail merge,
you will find various things don't work properly or are simply "not there".

For things such as a church newsletter, if you are using Mac Office
Professional, you have a copy of Virtual PC. Look in the remainder bin at
your local computer store or EBAY for a cheap copy of PC Word (Word 2000 or
anything later will be fine...) and drop it into VPC: job done.

Serious mail merging requires more horsepower than you will get from VPC so
this is not an available option for large jobs.

Cheers

I am creating an address/phone book for my church.  I have all the data

in Excel and I will do a "Mail Merge" into Word.  However, one of thecolumns of data contains paths to jpeg files of pictures.  I would

like

to merge these with the other data.  I tried to use

{ INCLUDEPICTURE "/Users/my/path/to/{ MERGEFIELD Photo}" \* MERGEFORMAT }
but this didn't work. When I "merged to a new document", I just got,
{ INCLUDEPICTURE "/Users/my/path/to/Picture.jpg" \* MERGEFORMAT }

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks, Jeremy

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi John,

I disagree with your assessment of Mac Word's mail-merge capabilities. I
had a very difficult assignment that required a custom layout (did that
in Mac Word and used a couple fancy Word Fields) and a VBA script that
included a Mac Script (thanks to Paul B). A similar setup with Windows
Outlook would have required the very sluggish SendKeys method. I sent
over 7,000 (scary number for me) emails from Entourage in three minutes
on the Mac. The process would have taken hours to complete in Outlook.
The fact that Entourage lets you have Indentities and Outlook does not
makes Outlook a weakling compared with Entourage. To do some really
fancy stuff you have to make individual Windows log-ons and completely
sign out of your normal Windows routine. Outlook is not an attractive
option IMHO.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi John et al,

I beg to differ with John's assessment of Mail Merge on the Mac. I find
Mac Office to be considerably *more* powerful than mail merge for
Windows Office.

I had a very complicated automation assignment that involved VBA and
thanks to Paul B some AppleScript. Entourage sent over 7,000 emails in
just seconds. Outlook would have taken hours using SendKeys, and would
have required a new Windows log-on since Outlook does not support
multiple Identities. Entourage does.

The solution for our correspondent is rather simple.

In the Word document the name of the header that contains the path names
from the Excel spreadsheet belongs in the Word Field.

For example, if our correspondent has the path names of the pictures
files in a column named "path" then the Word mail merge document would
have this field code:
{ INCLUDEPICTURE path \* MERGEFORMAT}

Notice no quotation marks around path.

The path names must be in Mactintosh format using colons : as path
seperators. The path names are case sensitive.

An additional little trick: You have to put an email word field into
word documents that you want to merge by email. If you don't want the
email address to show use Format>Font and hide the text.

-Jim

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Jim:

If you ever find me "recommending" Outlook for anything other than the
Knackery, please call the nice men in white coats

Outlook DOES enable identities, however: it calls them "Profiles", and you
can make it prompt for the one you want to use on startup. I would normally
achieve a similar effect by adding another .pst to my existing profile,
however. I am not sure whether it enables separate profiles if connected to
an Exchange Server, mind...

However, the point of my remark was to criticise the cut-down nature of
Word. Entourage has fewer bells and whistles than Outlook, and is pretty
crippled on an Exchange server, but I consider it a far superior IMAP or POP
client

I also said doing serious mail-merge operations in VPC would be an exercise
in patience

Cheers

Hi John,

I disagree with your assessment of Mac Word's mail-merge capabilities. I
had a very difficult assignment that required a custom layout (did that
in Mac Word and used a couple fancy Word Fields) and a VBA script that
included a Mac Script (thanks to Paul B). A similar setup with Windows
Outlook would have required the very sluggish SendKeys method. I sent
over 7,000 (scary number for me) emails from Entourage in three minutes
on the Mac. The process would have taken hours to complete in Outlook.
The fact that Entourage lets you have Indentities and Outlook does not
makes Outlook a weakling compared with Entourage. To do some really
fancy stuff you have to make individual Windows log-ons and completely
sign out of your normal Windows routine. Outlook is not an attractive
option IMHO.

-Jim

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Nevertheless, John, I have to agree with Jim. Entourage's MailMerge (called
"Data Merge") is pretty great. It's really versatile. And I'm going to ask
you a personal question: have you ever used it, even once in your life? Sure
you're not criticizing something you've never used?

--
Paul Berkowitz

From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:41:16 -0700
Conversation: Merging Picture with Mail Merge
Subject: Re: Merging Picture with Mail Merge

Hi Jim:

If you ever find me "recommending" Outlook for anything other than the
Knackery, please call the nice men in white coats

Outlook DOES enable identities, however: it calls them "Profiles", and you
can make it prompt for the one you want to use on startup. I would normally
achieve a similar effect by adding another .pst to my existing profile,
however. I am not sure whether it enables separate profiles if connected to
an Exchange Server, mind...

However, the point of my remark was to criticise the cut-down nature of
Word. Entourage has fewer bells and whistles than Outlook, and is pretty
crippled on an Exchange server, but I consider it a far superior IMAP or POP
client

I also said doing serious mail-merge operations in VPC would be an exercise
in patience

Cheers

Hi John,

I disagree with your assessment of Mac Word's mail-merge capabilities. I
had a very difficult assignment that required a custom layout (did that
in Mac Word and used a couple fancy Word Fields) and a VBA script that
included a Mac Script (thanks to Paul B). A similar setup with Windows
Outlook would have required the very sluggish SendKeys method. I sent
over 7,000 (scary number for me) emails from Entourage in three minutes
on the Mac. The process would have taken hours to complete in Outlook.
The fact that Entourage lets you have Indentities and Outlook does not
makes Outlook a weakling compared with Entourage. To do some really
fancy stuff you have to make individual Windows log-ons and completely
sign out of your normal Windows routine. Outlook is not an attractive
option IMHO.

-Jim

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Paul:

Yes, I used it.

Once in my life

I was really trying to cover the user if it turned out that Data Merge
simply would not DO what he wanted. I know there are some sharp limitations
when merging data item content "other" than "text".

Cheers

Nevertheless, John, I have to agree with Jim. Entourage's MailMerge (called
"Data Merge") is pretty great. It's really versatile. And I'm going to ask
you a personal question: have you ever used it, even once in your life? Sure
you're not criticizing something you've never used?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Ah. Yes, that's something I haven't tried myself (graphics files), but it
sounded as if Jim had.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 00:08:59 -0700
Conversation: Merging Picture with Mail Merge
Subject: Re: Merging Picture with Mail Merge

Hi Paul:

Yes, I used it.

Once in my life

I was really trying to cover the user if it turned out that Data Merge
simply would not DO what he wanted. I know there are some sharp limitations
when merging data item content "other" than "text".

Cheers

Nevertheless, John, I have to agree with Jim. Entourage's MailMerge (called
"Data Merge") is pretty great. It's really versatile. And I'm going to ask
you a personal question: have you ever used it, even once in your life? Sure
you're not criticizing something you've never used?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[jlconlin]

Thanks for everyone's help. I tried

{ INCLUDEPICTURE "Macintosh HD:Users:myath:to:{ MERGEFIELD Photo}"
\*
MERGEFORMAT }

however, I got the same result as before. I guess I need to check if
Cindy knows the answer. Thanks again for your help.

Jeremy

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Yes, he has. I simply wasn't going to go there... It's too hard. I'll let
Cindy tell him how

As I understand it, Data Merge passes "typed" parameters across the
application boundary. It can handle "text" and "delimited text" and "Long
Integers" for example, but "binary soup" is not on its menu.

The user needs to do something tricky: roughly something like:

* Place the graphics file on the hard disk

* Place a Link to the graphics file in the Main document

* Nest a MERGEDATA field in the link field

* Populate the filename of the link field with merged data from the data
source

* Fire a macro on the Document Save event to update the Link field in each
letter with the correct picture, then re-size the result.

Doing all of this with publishable-quality graphics files for a mail-out of
any "size" requires some serious horsepower and I/O bandwidth Last one
I worked on fired off 1.8 million letters. That takes GRUNT

Cindy will know

Cheers

Ah. Yes, that's something I haven't tried myself (graphics files), but it
sounded as if Jim had.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[jlconlin]

So I posted on the Mail Merge group, but someone said Cindy doesn't
come around as much anymore. I did find out that you have to escape
the delimiters in the file path as:

\/Users\/my\/path\/to\/Picture.jpg

I was able to import the file paths to the pictures, but when I said
"Toggle Field Codes", every entry was filled with the first picture in
the list. That won't help me much in my telephone directory. I don't
want everyone to have the same picture!

Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hey John,

You "got" me on the meaning of the word "Knackery." Even the internet
was of little help with any explanation of what that is. It seems to
have something to do with sending animals to a rendering facility.

I don't have my Outlook available right now. Can an Outlook "profile" be
associated with its own calendar, discreet address book(s) and groups?
Or is it more like an Entourage "account"?

My point was that doing mail merge on any Windows computer is an
excerise in patience. Entourage & Word Mac are a far superior
combination than Word 2003 and Outlook 2003. The Windows "Task Pain" is
a far cry from the superbly designed "Data Merge Manager" on the Mac side.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi John,

Before I posted any answer I took the time to determine whether or not
the Data Merge Manger does what the user wanted. It does.

Now you've issued a challenge, so I'll take you up on it. Please
describe even one of the "sharp limitations" that you think exist in the
Mac version of mail merge compared with the Windows version of Mail Merge.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Yes, I did in fact go through a complete merge before posting my reply
and everything worked perfectly.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi John,

No, it's not hard. It's not tricky.

I posted the simple solution to the problem on September 26.

No macros are needed. No nesting is needed. Word Mac already knows how
to do everything he wants.

A simple Word Field (the one our correspondent asked about in the first
place) can handle his request just fine.

We don't need Cindy to answer the correspondent's question. I answered
it already.

I see that our correspondent has posted again and apparantly both you
and our correspondent did not see the answer, so I will reply again.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

I assume that you did not see my Sept 26 posting that has the correct,
easy answer for you.

You do not have escape any delimters. You do not have to go to another
newsgroup.

Do not use slashes in file names on the Mac. This will never work:
\/Users\/my\/path\/to\/Picture.jpg

The list of file names should look something like this in your Excel
worksheet:
Hard Drive:Usersictures:Folder Nameicture1.jpg
Hard Drive:Usersictures:Folder Nameicture2.jpg
Hard Drive:Usersictures:Folder Name:Aunt Mary.gif
and so on.

You were correct in the first place and you were using the correct Word
Field: INCLUDE PICTURE. INCLUDE PICTURE will do exactly what you want
without any additional messing around. Use INSERT FIELD and choose the
INCLUDE PICTURE word field and modify it as described below:

Let me quote what I posted on Sept 26:

In the Word document the name of the header that contains the path names
from the Excel spreadsheet belongs in the Word Field.

For example, if our correspondent has the path names of the pictures
files in a column named "path" then the Word mail merge document would
have this field code:
{ INCLUDEPICTURE path \* MERGEFORMAT}

Notice no quotation marks around path.

The path names must be in Mactintosh format using colons : as path
seperators. The path names are case sensitive.

I sure hope you see this posting what with all the unrelated clutter
(some of of which I posted - sorry) that was posted in response to your
question.

-Jim