Sorting mail merged records alphabetically

[Danny]

Creating Form letters with a merge from Access database. The records merge by date entered into Access. How can I resort to merge letters alphabetically by Field Name ie: Last Name. I have tried sorting the table to be merged alphabetically but the merge still occurs in the order entered in the data base

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Use a query in Access to sort the records and as the data source for the
mailmerge.

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Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
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Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Maikie]

Does this count for an Excel worksheet too
In other words; does the sort records function from the MailMerge Query options doesn't work with any other data source than Word data sources

----- Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote: ----

Use a query in Access to sort the records and as the data source for the
mailmerge

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for th
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarde
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis

Hope this help
Doug Robbins - Word MV

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I don't know what version of Word you are using, but in Word 2003/XP, you
can sort any data source via the Mailmerge Recipients dialog by clicking on
the column heading.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Does this count for an Excel worksheet too?
In other words; does the sort records function from the MailMerge Query

options doesn't work with any other data source than Word data sources?

 

[Maikie]

Thank you for your kind reaction; I'm using Office 2000; and I think I've found the answer
I can sort the Excel data when I have chosen to open my Data source by the Method of using a conversionprogramm. Works fine; but my Excel data then is converted to a Word table and I must not save the changes on closing this document
So it is indeed best to sort in advance in Excel, of afterwards in the Word document with the merged data

Thanks again
Maike Ween

----- Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote: ----

I don't know what version of Word you are using, but in Word 2003/XP, yo
can sort any data source via the Mailmerge Recipients dialog by clicking o
the column heading

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for th
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarde
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis

Hope this help
Doug Robbins - Word MV

Does this count for an Excel worksheet too
In other words; does the sort records function from the MailMerge Quer

options doesn't work with any other data source than Word data sources

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Databases (and I guess you could call Excel a database, though I would not)
are much better at data manipulation than Word Processors.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Thank you for your kind reaction; I'm using Office 2000; and I think I've found the answer.
I can sort the Excel data when I have chosen to open my Data source by the

Method of using a conversionprogramm. Works fine; but my Excel data then is
converted to a Word table and I must not save the changes on closing this
document.

So it is indeed best to sort in advance in Excel, of afterwards in the

Word document with the merged data.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWFpa2ll?=,

Thank you for your kind reaction; I'm using Office 2000; and I think I've found the answer.
I can sort the Excel data when I have chosen to open my Data source by the Method of

using a conversionprogramm. Works fine; but my Excel data then is converted to a Word
table and I must not save the changes on closing this document.

So it is indeed best to sort in advance in Excel, of afterwards in the Word document with the merged data.

Where you can sort depends, with Access and Excel, how you connect to the data, as you've
discovered. When you use a DDE connection (the default in Word 2000 for Excel and
Access), the sorting in Excel or Access takes precedence over anything you set in Word.

If you use ODBC, or the spreadsheet converter, then the sorting you set in Word will take
effect. If you don't like using the converter for Excel, try ODBC

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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