Newbie help with getting all desired fields in merge document

[Barnet]

Hi,

I'm trying to do a simple letter mail merge. I'd like to include courtesy
title, middle name and suffix in the name line, and for the greeting I'd like
to have Dear and then the last name. These options appear in the dialogue
boxes, and all that info is filled in my contact list from which I'm
generating this merge.

However, for some reason the address block function is only reading first
and last name, so even if I select "Joshua Q. Randall Jr.", I only get Joshua
Randall. When I click the "match fields", I am not offered an option for the
courtesy title, and the middle name and suffix are "(not matched)" and
unavailble. Similarly for the greeting line, I am only able to generate "Dear
Joshua Randall" instead of "Dear Mr. Randall,"

If I click on the Insert Merge Field button there are two choices: Address
Fields and Data Base Fields. The Address Fields option has all the info, but
the Data Base option only has those fields I am getting when I click the
Address Block button. I don't see a way to make the Address Block button read
all the fields from the Address Fields option button.

I hope I'm being clear with all of this. I'd like to click on Address Block
and Greeting Line, and have the choices for all the fields. I'd rather not
construct these field by field.

Thanks in advance for your help... it seems like setting up the merge should
be easy, but this is quite confusing.

Barnet

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. If addressblock isn't working for you (it has plenty of problems)
consider inserting the individual fields you need in the sequence you need,
using IF fields to deal with empty values and so on.

If I click on the Insert Merge Field button there are two choices: Address
Fields and Data Base Fields. The Address Fields option has all the info,

2. The "data base" fields are the actual fields available from your data
source, with the names actually used in that data source. The "address
fields" are just a list of standardised field names for the types of fields
that Word looks for in a data source.
In order to use the Address fields, they have to be "matched" or "mapped" to
database fields. Word does this mapping automatically when it sees Database
field names that it recognises (I don't know exactly what it looks for). You
can also map/match fields manually.

3. The options in Word's Addressblock and Greetingline fields work with
prespecified sets of Address fields - in other words, to work properly, the
Address fields they use have to be correctly mapped.

However, for some reason the address block function is only reading first
and last name, so even if I select "Joshua Q. Randall Jr.", I only get
Joshua
Randall. When I click the "match fields", I am not offered an option for
the
courtesy title, and the middle name and suffix are "(not matched)"

4. If you scroll down within the match fields option, you should see the
Courtesy Title field is available for matching - as long as you actually
have a courtesy title field in your data source you should be able to select
it from the dropdown on the rightt of "Courtesy title".Similarly for middle
name and suffix.If you don't have these fields in your data source, and your
data source is Outlook, you may bebetter off initiating your merge from
Outlook by selecting the contacts you need and using Outlook Tools|Mail
merge

 

[Barnet]

Hi Peter,

Thanks so much for your suggestions. The one that did the trick was to
create the merge from within Outlook itself (actually Business Contact
Manager). Somehow it was easy to get the merge just as I needed it.

Barnet