Sorting recipients in Mail Merge

[sgough]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

When using Office Address Book (Entourage) as data source for the recipients list, then filtering by category, I cannot sort the recipients into a useful order. It is no use exporting from Entourage to Excel because there is no option to select contacts by category for export and Excel does not pick up Categories as separate fields for sorting. Is there a way around this problem and, if not, when will Microsoft fix these glaring shortcomings?
I will much appreciate any help to finding a solution.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

One option in this case is to do two merges:
a. set up a Catalog merge and insert a single-row table with one
column for each Address Book field that you need, and nothing else
b. insert the relevant mailmerge field into each cell
c. select your category
d. merge to a new document
e. save the document
f. sort the records
g. add a table header row with the appropriate field names
h. use that as the data source for your merge

Assuming you're not just doing one merge...
a. you can save and re-use the mailmerge main document. It may be
better to prepare for the future by including all the fields you might
conceivably use.
b. there are various ways you could make step (g) easier, e.g.
- use a separate
- save the header row as an autotext or in a separate file
- (perhaps) include a dummy entry in your address book where each
field contains the fieldname, arrange that it will be included in any
category that you want to use, and arrange that it will appear at the
top of the list when sorted.

If you have simple data (no multiple lines, no tab characters etc.) you
can merge to a tab-separated format rather than a table format. In that
case you can insert the header row using an IF field so that it is only
included when the first record is merged - like this:

{ IF { MERGEREC } = 1
"fieldname1<tab>fieldname2<tab> etc.
"
"" }{ MERGEFIELD fieldname1 }<tab>{ MERGEFIELD fieldname2 }<tab> etc.

Where all the {} are the special field code braces, not the ordinary
curly braces on the keyboard, and you replace <tab> by real tab
characters and the fieldnames by the ones you want.

Then you can use Word's facilities to sort, or copy/paste into Excel and
sort there, and so on.

Or I guess if you are Applescript-savvy or have some other way to do
scripting in Office 2008, you could automate some of the above.

Nasty, but perhaps better than nothing.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[sgough]

Thanks Peter, that is a pretty comprehensive workaround and I will try it out as I can see that it will work. But let's hope Microsoft provides a proper fix soon.
Sean.

 

[Ken_Kemp]

Sgough... you are much too kind. Hey Sean... wouldn't you agree that this is a ridiculously complicated fix to what ought to be a simple programming change for us working folks out there trying to utilize the MS product? I use merge all the time; and I've been waiting for MS to fix the category snafu; and then we ought to be able to alphabetize our labels and directories with ease. Please help us!

While the programmers are at it, I'd like to be able to export by CATEGORY to EXCEL. That would simply matters considerably.

Thank you.

Ken K

 

[Ken_Kemp]

Sgough... you are much too kind. Hey Sean... wouldn't you agree that this is a ridiculously complicated fix to what ought to be a simple programming change for us working folks out there trying to utilize the MS product? I use merge all the time; and I've been waiting for MS to fix the category snafu; and then we ought to be able to alphabetize our labels and directories with ease. Please help us!

While the programmers are at it, I'd like to be able to export by CATEGORY to EXCEL. That would simply matters considerably.

Thank you.

Ken K

One more thing... I've downloaded and installed every update... and I keep hoping that the people at MS dealt with this issue in the new update... and EVERY TIME I've been disappointed to find that this issue has been summarily IGNORED. What does it take to get the attention of the people who write the software?

Ken

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ken:

We don't make the rules in this game But one that we need to tell you
about is "An update should NEVER add new functionality".

So there is no point in expecting a new function to appear in an update: the
software industry generally (including Microsoft) won't do this. It causes
too many problems.

Microsoft sometimes stretches this rule a bit: if they have already planned
to include a function, but it did not make it into the shipping version, it
may appear in a subsequent update. But this one was not planned in 2008,
and it won't ever appear in 2008.

In the meantime, you can of course export "everything" to Excel, and do your
sorting and categorizing there.

When Office 2010 appears: hop into your Mac shop and test it. There's a
rumour that there will be changes in this mechanism in the next version, so
you might get lucky!

Oh: I didn't answer the question... "What does it take to get the
attention of the people who write the software?" A: Nothing. You already
have that.

The more pertinent question is "What does it take to get the attention of
the Marketing Department that specifies the features for the product?" And
the answer to that is "Sales".

If you can make a business case to prove that Microsoft will get a million
extra sales by adding your feature, you will have it in the next version!
The difficult bits are the "million extra" and "proving it".

Sorry I have no good news.

Cheers

One more thing... I've downloaded and installed every update... and I keep
hoping that the people at MS dealt with this issue in the new update... and
EVERY TIME I've been disappointed to find that this issue has been summarily
IGNORED. What does it take to get the attention of the people who write the
software?

Ken

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John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]