I think you have hit the nail on the head - it will be a slog. I have never
had to do this, but in order to achieve this, you have to know exactly what
genders and numbers you are dealing with, and include the appropriate texts
at every point in the document where they can vary. There are several
possible ways to do that. In all cases I would create fields in the database
for gender and number (and whatever else you need), unless there is some
really simple way to deduce what is required for each record you merge.
Then, there are several approaches including
a. use different mail merge main documents for each combination of
number/gender, and do separate merges for each main document
b. use IF fields to determine which texts you need
c. use INCLUDETEXT fields to include the appropriate texts, either using
different files or using bookmarks in the included document to name the
texts you need (you may also be able to use AUTOTEXTs)
d. use Mailmerge events and VBA to insert the correct values.
If the texts for different gender/number combinations are radically
different, (a) might be appropriate. Otherwise, on the whole, I'd try to
stick with (b) on the grounds that it's the simplest and most direct
approach and keeps everything in one place. If you have to deal with a /lot/
of variations in your text, (c) might become more attractive. I'd only use
(d) if I couldn't use the other methods and there was someone around to
maintain the code.
A problem with (c) is that MS makes INCLUDETEXTing increasingly less
reliable/usable over time. However, the idea is as follows:
Suppose you are just interested in Male/Female/Singular/Plural. You might
decide there are 5 cases:
Female Singular
Male Singular
Female Plural
Male Plural
Mixed Plural
You could represent this in many ways in your data, e.g. a code for each
combination (e.g. 1-5), or store the "gender" in one field, say as F,M,N and
the number separately as S,P. Personally I would try to keep the pieces of
information separate in my data but try to combine them (perhaps using a
View/Query) for use by Mailmerge because it makes writing the necessary IF
or INCLUDETEXT fields simpler. Let's suppose you use F,M,D and S,P, and
concatenate them for merge to FS, FP, MS, MP, NP in a field called
"Variation". Then suppose you have to insert
her, his, or their in the document.
You can do this in two ways:
1. multiple documents
Have five documents, say c:\mywords\fs.doc, c:\mywords\fp.doc etc.
in fs.doc, type the word "her" and use insert|bookmark to insert a bookmark
called "her"
You would have the "FS" version of all the other texts you need in this
document, all bookmarked with whatever name you want to give each text. You
might need to have different versions for "firstcap" texts, capitalised
texts, etc., or you may be able to rely on field formatting switches such as
\*Caps in your mail merge main document to do that stuff.
Copy the document to fp.doc and change the word "her" to "their", ensuring
that the whole word is still bookmarked as "her". Do the same for all the
other texts, and repeat for MS, MP, NP, or whatever sequence makes it easy.
In you mail merge main document, whenever you need "her/his/their", use
{ INCLUDETEXT "c:\\mywords\\{ MERGEFIELD variation }.doc" "her" }
2. One document
In this approach, you would have one document, say called "c:\mywords\v.doc"
For her/his/their you type a line, or multiple lines containing
her his their
Bookmark "her" as herFS
Bookmark "his" as herMS
Bookmark "their" as herFP, herMP and herNP
Do the same for all the other texts
In your mail merge main document, use
{ INCLUDETEXT "c:\\mywords\\v.doc" "her{ MERGEFIELD variation }" }
You could doubtless do other stuff to help you use and maintain that stuff,
but that's the gist of it anyway.
Peter Jamieson
