I already tried it outside the text boxes. What happens
then is, no matter where, physically, you place the "NEXT"
field code relative to the text boxes, the fields in both
the text boxes end up containing the same data, as I
mentioned in my original mail, and the data item that is
first in the data file is skipped altogether.
My current best guess as to what seems to happen is :-
when the main document is scanned by Word, the text layer
is scanned first, and any fields found are sorted out.
Then, the text boxes get looked at (and they are treated,
for some reason beyond me, like headers [or some such]).
That, I think, would explain why, when the "NEXT" is
placed outside the text boxes, the first of the data items
is skipped, wouldn't it?
-----Original Message-----
If you can't use the second method, then you will have to re-arrange
the mailmerge main document so that you can put the Next Record
field (from the Insert Word Fields list) outside of (before) the
text box in the second form, or use a table to control the layout
rather than text boxes.
--
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
Thanks for the response, Doug.
Re your first suggestion -
There doesn't seem to be a "Next Record" field to choose
in my list (I presume you go to "Insert"; "Field").
I had already tried using the "Next" field. If I do, then
as soon as I try to preview the forms, I get an error
message saying :-
"You cannot include DATA, NEXT, NEXTIF, or SKIPIF fields
in comments, headers, footers, footnotes or endnotes."
I'm not "in" any of these - I'm simlpy in a text box on my
page!
I can use "NEXT" and it works fine if I'm not in a text
box - but then I can't position my fields accurately
relative to the underlying boiler plate text that makes up
the form.
Regards
John Attwood
-----Original Message-----
You would need to insert a <<Next Record>> field before the first
mergefield in the second form.
Alternatively, if you are using one of the later versions of Word
that has the ability to print multiple pages to a single sheet of
paper, you could just set it up as a single A4 form, merge to a
new document and then print that document as 2 pages to a sheet.
That setting is in the lower right half of the File>Print dialog.
--
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
Can anyone help? Am I going about this in the best way?
I want to use mail-merge to fill out and print a5- sized
school reports but I only have a4 paper.
I've created two copies of the boiler plate text, one
above the other, in the top and bottom halves of an a4
document in Word. I have used text boxes to locate the
merge fields from the source excel file in the correct
positions relative to the underlying boiler plate text of
the upper and the lower copies of the report.
Try as I might I cannot get one pupil's data in the top a5
form and the next pupil's data in the bottom one. I can
only manage two copies of the same pupil's data: one in
the top a5 report and the same data appearing in the
bottom one too! I can't get Word to move to the next data
record for the merge fields in the lower a5 copy.
.
.
