Need to get back to Previous Record

[Peter Jamieson]

Hi Steve,

Point one is that where you have «First_», if you click Alt-F9, you'll see
something like { MERGEFIELD First_ }. I think of the { MERGEFIELD First_ }
form as the "field code", the «First_» form as the "placeholder", the thing
you see when you preview the results as the "preview result" and the real,
final, as-merged result as the "field result". If you want to modify the
field code, replace it altogether or edit it when you see the "field code".
Don't try to edit the placeholder.

Point two is that if your merge has to deal with one person addressees, two
person addressees, etc. and you are using 1,2 and more records in the data
source to model that, things can get pretty difficult in the Mail Merge Main
Document. OTOH if in this instance your documents always deal with the same
number of people. If you can get the info. about those people into a single
data source record, so much the better (from a mailmerge point of view).

It was a pleasure to have «First_» «Last» and «Next Record»«First_» «Last»
with us...
And then I'd like to use a sentence like
«First_» and «Next Record»«First_» were a great asset to the workshop...

What I'm trying to achieve is a situation where the same First_ names
appear
in the two lines of text.

In this case, you could probably get away witth...
{ SET AFirst { MERGEFIELD First_ } }{ SET ALast { MERGEFIELD Last } }It was
a pleasure to have { REF AFirst } { REF ALast } and { NEXT }{ MERGEFIELD
First_ } { MERGEFIELD Last } with us...

{ REF AFirst } and { MERGEFIELD First_ } were a great asset to the
workshop...

(i.e. you only need one { NEXT }

All the {} need to be the special field code braces you can insert using
ctrl-F9, but all the other text can be typed in the usual way.

I hope that makes a bit more sense but if not, please try to spell out what
doesn't.

Peter Jamieson

 

[Steve S]

I have used the Insert "Next Record" which does exactly what I want but it
leave me stuck in the "Next Record." How do I get back to the previous
record? It seems like there should be a "Previous Record" command but I can't
find it.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Peter Jamieson]

It seems like there should be a "Previous Record" command but I can't

find it.

No, there isn't one.

Although you can't "go back", you can save the values in one record using
SET fields and use them later using REF fields, e.g.

{ SET fielda_temp { MERGEFIELD fielda } }
{ NEXT }
Current Field A: { MERGEFIELD fielda }
Previous FieldA: { REF fielda_temp }

If you try this approach, I would check that it works with all the field
types you are using and verify that any fields containing long strings are
correctly preserved.

Peter Jamieson

 

[Steve S]

Greetings Peter,
Thanks for the suggestion but you're talking to a "merge rookie." I'm not
sure what to do with the information you have given me.

The sentence I'm working on looks like this
It was a pleasure to have «First_» «Last» and «Next Record»«First_» «Last»
with us...
And then I'd like to use a sentence like
«First_» and «Next Record»«First_» were a great asset to the workshop...

What I'm trying to achieve is a situation where the same First_ names appear
in the two lines of text.

Steve

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Sounds like you are probably trying to perform a "multiple items per
condition (=key field)" mailmerge which Word does not really have the
ability to do:

See the "Group Multiple items for a single condition" item on fellow MVP
Cindy Meister's website at

http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/mergfaq1.htm#DBPic


Or take a look at the following Knowledge Base Article

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;211303


http://www.knowhow.com/Guides/CompoundMerges/CompoundMerge.htm


--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Steve S]

Thanks Peter,
Sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees. I wasn't working with a very
big database so it wasn't too hard to just rearrang the fields so that both
names apperied in the same record.

I don't know much about programing but it seems pretty basic that if you
include a "Next Record" command, you ought to include a "Previous Record"
command.

Thanks for helping me see the light.

Steve