[cross-posting to Entourage newsgroup, think this needs expert help in that
program, maybe re exporting contacts? ‹oops, forgot to add the address to
the first one]
I am trying to create a mail merge document in Word 2004 using
Entourage data. Putting together a family reunion and need to send
e-mails to each person showing what data I have for each person/family.
In the Merge Field drag and drop I don't see "Children" field and
several others. Can someone help me out? Why aren't all the Entourage
contact fields showing the mail merge drag and drop in Word?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Cause the functionality is limited. Use Help | Send Feedback to complain.
I'd like to be able to mail merge using Nicknames, myself...the designer
seemed to think mail merge was only a corporate function.
Anyhow, for this problem--I was going to suggest exporting the contacts to
Excel and then using that as a data source for the merge--BUT, I did a quick
test and don't see "Children" exported among the numerous fields that show
up.
Anyone? An idea to export "Children"? A different approach?
If you get my shareware scripts "Export-Import Entourage" from
MacScripter.net <
http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>
the Contacts-Groups Export from X script exports contacts to a tab-delimited
text file which includes Children, Nickname and everything else. It also
lets you choose to export by Category, by Selected contacts, or by Flagged
contacts (or All Contacts).
There is a peculiarity about Children (undoubtedly the reason why the
standard export avoids it) in that it's a list which needs resolving to
text. My script (for reasons to do with the usual destination of these
exported text files, namely other PIMs such as Outlook Windows) uses
semicolons (
and no spaces. Since you probably have no other semicolons
anywhere in the text file, you could just do a quick Find/Replace of ";" by
", " (no quotes) in either TextEdit or Excel. Or, if you think there might
be some semicolons lurking elsewhere, like the Notes (called "Content" as a
field name in the text file), use Excel, select just the Children column,
and do the Edit/Replace there.
But there is one other thing you have to do, or Word's Data Merge will
reject the file: there are two funny-looking rows at the very bottom
containing all your Category names and a set of odd-looking numbers (which
look even weirder in Excel, which misunderstands the numbering and commas).
You must remove them and re-save. If you know what you're doing, you could
even do that in TextEdit too, but all the long lines wrap there so it can be
hard to see where the last two "rows" begin". (Unless you have a 23=30"
monitor and stretch out the window, the wrapping makes it look like about 12
"lines" rather than 2 rows.) So that's _much_ easier in Excel: just delete
the bottom two rows.
However, if you do this in Excel (recommended), do not simply re-save,
especially if any cells, anywhere, contain numbers. Excel totally
misunderstands and reformats numbers, totally screwing up zip codes, for
example. Instead, use the script "Excel Save Clean Text 2004" in the Xcel
Extras 2004 subfolder of Export-Import package. (Just double-click it when
the spreadsheet is open in Excel.) Take note of your Work Zip and Home Zip
column letters (M and S), Age column (AZ), and any other column that has any
right-aligned numbers or dates. You'll be asked to enter the column letters,
and the script will do the right thing when saving.
The only problem here is that the copy of "Excel Save Clean Text 2004" in
the current posted version (1.3.9) of Export-Import Entourage has a bug.
I've fixed it a long time ago but have forgotten to post it. I'll do so in
the next few days, If you want to try this before you see the new version
(1.3.10) of Export-Import posted at the website. just write to me (remove
"spoof_" from my email address here, or use the one listed in the script
ReadMe).
It's actually a lot simpler than all this discussion might make it look:
1) Use Contacts=Groups Export form X to export contacts by selection,
category, flagged, or All.
2) Open the resulting Contacts Export EvX.txt file in Excel.
3) Select Children column (AX) and Replace ";" by ", " (Replace All).
4) ***Delete the two funny rows at the very bottom.
5) Run "Excel Save Clean Text 2004" - version 1.3.10.
6) Do a Data Merge in Word using the saved file from step 5 as your Data
Source.
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <
http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>
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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
