Printing labels from Word using Outlook contact list for addresses

[Drybeer]

In Microsoft Word I am trying to print mail labels from the tools>envelopes
and labels> function and when I try to use an existing Outlook address book
of contacts an error message appears telling me that Outlook is either not
the default mail handling programme or that it cannot perform this task.

In Outlook>Tools>Options>Other the check box for "Make Outlook the default
for E-mail, Contacts and Calendar" is checked correctly, yet the computer
still shows the above message.

The contact list was imported from our old PC successfully and shows in
"Contacts", and on our old PC this procedure worked OK.

Please can you give me some tips...

Many thanks,

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If possible, try initiating the merge from Outlook instead:
- select some contacts in Outlook
- select Outlook Tools|Mail Merge... and fill in the form there. Outlook
creates a temporary file with the contact information and either creates or
opens your mail merge main document, depending on what you specify.

 

[Drybeer]

Hi thanks for the suggestion.

I had already tried this.

I can get to the stage that Word opens a document with the correct "grid"
boxes for labels, but all fields are empty.

It does tell me it has created a data source for the contacts, but I cannot
get further.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Word does not try to guess what information (fields) to insert from your
data source. It just presents you with a table, usually with one cell for
each label. (In some layouts there are what I call "label cells" and "spacer
cells" which just provide horizontal and vertical spacing. It's usually
pretty obvious which cells are intended to correspond to the labels).

At this point precisely what to do depends on which version of Word you are
using. If it is Word 2007, pretty much everything is on the "Mailings" tab.
If it is Word 2002/2003, I suggest you use e.g. View|Toolbars to enable the
MailMerge toolbar, then
a. in your first label cell, insert the fields you need from the data
source. Use the 6th button on the toolbar, just before "Insert Word Field".
(You can try using the ADDRESSBLOCK field but be sure that it inserts what
you want for all your data, as it suffers from a number of problems)
b. Format the fields as necessary (be careful not to modify the table
layout)
c. Use the Propagate labels toolbar button (I think it's the 11th button)
to copy your fields and layout to all the other cells, and to insert the
<<Next record>> field that tells Word to move to the next record for each
table cell. (Note1, yoiu do not need a <<Next record>> field in the first
table cell. Note2. On some tablet PCs and possibly some Windows Vista
systems the propagate label function does not work, in which case you can
try the macros at http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0005.htm
d. Preview the merge using the toolbar and redo steps (a)-(c) as necessary/
e. "Complete the merge", either by merging to a printer, or merging to a
new document then printing it. The necessary buttons are on the MailMerge
toolbar.