Query Options & Calculations

[Piemonster]

We have just been upgraded at work to Office 2003 from Office 97 (no training
or manuals on offer). I use mail merge to create bills every month. I have
a few problems with the new mailmerge which I can't figure out:

1. I have a datafile in Excel which includes all clients. However, they do
not all need billing every month. In the old version I used query options to
select those required at month end which was simple (e.g. merge where [field]
= "not blank"). Now the process seems much more complicated. The whole data
source comes up as a dialogue box and I have to manually tick those needed
which is a bit tedious (I do use the deselect all and filter which makes it a
bit quicker). Is there an easier way?

2. It also doesn't seem to let me edit the data source from that point,
which you could before - there is an edit button, it is never active.

3. My datasource in Excel calculates fees and total bill (very simple
formulae - number of hours x hourly rate, etc). All figures entered are to 2
decimal points and formulae results are specified to be 2 decimal points.
However, the merge results ignore decimal rulings and my figures are all over
the place. Is there a way I can specifcy the format of figures and get them
to round up correctly?

Thank you.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. I have a datafile in Excel which includes all clients. However, they

do
not all need billing every month. In the old version I used query options
to
select those required at month end which was simple (e.g. merge where
[field]
= "not blank"). Now the process seems much more complicated.

It is, but you can still get to the Query Options by clicking on the tiny
drop-down arrow in one of the headings of the columns in Select Recipients,
and choosing Advanced... You can also go into Tools|Customize|Commands,
select Category All COmmands, and locate and drag MailMergeHelper out to a
toolbar (in fact I would recommend that you enable the Mail Merge Toolbar in
Word 2003, which stays enabled all the time unlike the old one) and put it
there. Click that and you should see the old query options. However, you may
find some of the filtering does not work as expected in this version, unless
you change the connection method to Excel...

2. It also doesn't seem to let me edit the data source from that point,
which you could before - there is an edit button, it is never active.

In essence, this button is disabled for many types of data source now. For
Excel, you may be better off reverting to the old way Word connected to
Excel - check Word Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversion at open", go
through the connection process again, and select the DDE option when it is
offered. I think you will probably need to edit inside the copy of Excel
that Word starts in that case. But that is also the approach most likely to
fix your point (3). The new approach is that the formatting you specified in
Excel is lost in the transfer and you have to put numeric format switches
into your numeric merge fields in Word, e.g. something like

{ MERGEFIELD myamount \#"$,0.00" } for a dollar amount

Peter Jamieson

We have just been upgraded at work to Office 2003 from Office 97 (no
training
or manuals on offer). I use mail merge to create bills every month. I
have
a few problems with the new mailmerge which I can't figure out:

1. I have a datafile in Excel which includes all clients. However, they
do
not all need billing every month. In the old version I used query options
to
select those required at month end which was simple (e.g. merge where
[field]
= "not blank"). Now the process seems much more complicated. The whole
data
source comes up as a dialogue box and I have to manually tick those needed
which is a bit tedious (I do use the deselect all and filter which makes
it a
bit quicker). Is there an easier way?

2. It also doesn't seem to let me edit the data source from that point,
which you could before - there is an edit button, it is never active.

3. My datasource in Excel calculates fees and total bill (very simple
formulae - number of hours x hourly rate, etc). All figures entered are
to 2
decimal points and formulae results are specified to be 2 decimal points.
However, the merge results ignore decimal rulings and my figures are all
over
the place. Is there a way I can specifcy the format of figures and get
them
to round up correctly?

Thank you.