urgent mail merge with different pictures problem

[oli merge]

Hi,

I am trying to make product labels with individual pictures in Word (again
lol). I have done this before with the help of this forum and so am familiar
with the issues and workarounds that are common and are dealt with on Graham
M's helpful site.

I am using the method of {INCLUDEPICTURE {MERGEFIELD "PhotoPath"
}\*MERGEFORMAT} as the picture and Photopath as a column in my excel
spreadsheet that contains the rest of the product info. The field contains
the path is in exactly the following format: C:\\Documents and
Settings\\oliver.merge\\My Documents\\PWC photo labels\\pics\\PWC_FRS010.jpg

Problem is that this time I just cant get the pictures to appear where they
should. I have 10 labels to a page, and on my original excel file the first
picture is missing, so would be C:\\Documents and Settings\\oliver.merge\\My
Documents\\PWC photo labels\\pics\\.jpg

This first file being missing seemed to cause word to pick a default image,
which happens to be a picture of a telephone I took ages ago. So this phone
image appeared in the first label, followed by the rest of the labels in the
correct place.

So far so good, I then decided I want to leave out the items with no photo,
and firstly tried deselecting them in the select merge recipients thing. This
had the effect of updating the text elements correctly, but leaving the
pictures as they are, keeping in the default phone picture and so having the
pics lined up against the wrong products.

I tried select all F9 and merging to a new document, I get various incorrect
results such as all pictures being the default phone one, all pictures
disappearing and all records changing to be the first one. I see when
pressing alt F9 that its changed the mergefield part in the INCLUDEPICTURE
command to an absolute path and so tried starting again with a brand new
INCLUDEPICTURE command with the mergefield photopath put back in. No good,
same problem.

I then tried making a brand new excel workbook with all products that are
missing pictures taken out and merged from that instead. No good, exactly the
same problem, still has the default images in where they would be if I merged
from the original data. I have tried deleting the INCLUDEPICTURE thing and
inserting a brand new one and its just ignoring me and putting the default
phone picture in again.

Im completely baffled, in fact I cant even find where the phone picture is
on my harddrive to see what happens if I delete it so I have no idea where
how or why word is finding it.

As I say, I managed to get this to work a few months ago but now am
completely stuck. The only difference is I am now using WORD 2003 instead of
2000.

please please help!

 

[oli merge]

perhaps I should add that whatever I do it always puts my first label as the
default phone picture, regardless of whether it has its own picture or not.

 

[oli merge]

any thoughts anyone? please?

 

[Graham Mayor]

You need to merge to a new document *then* select all and F9 to update.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[oli merge]

nah tried that, tried all sorts of combinations of updating fields and
turning on and off Alt F9 but to no avail

 

[Andy]

Oli;

A few months ago I had almost the same hassle as You.

Pasting the back and forth, hope it helps.

Andy

Posted this 12/26/06

Hi Andy,

The problem is in Tools/Options/General/Web options/Files. Deactivate the
option to automatically update links when saving. That will stop Word from
making the changes to the field code.

Had been using Word 2000 for a mail merge from Access 2000 and the this
code
worked correctly in Word 2000:
{IncludePicture "c:\\Program Files\\My
Program\\ProductPictures\\{MERGEFIELD
ProductCategory}{ProductSubCategory}{ProductName}.jpg"}

What the code does is pull a photo of the Product.
Note: The photos are named using the Category: Clothing, Sub-Category:
Woman, and ProductName: Shoes.
Example: ClothingWomanShoes.jpg

A query with a criteria in Access generates the merge using the
information
the user has displayed on the screen.

A command button then executes the merge.
Everything worked correctly until we started using Word 2002 on one
computer.

The code changes to:
{IncludePicture "../../../program%20files/My
Program//ProductPictures/ClothingWomansShoes.jpg" \* MERGEFORMATINNET}

The Double Backslashes are replaced by the above.

Tried doing it manually. It works at first but when the document is saved
it changes from:
{IncludePicture "C:\\Program Files\\My
Program\\ProductPictures\\{MERGEFIELD
ProductCategory}{MERGEFIELD ProductSubCategory}{MERGEFIELD
ProductName}.jpg"}
To:
{IncludePicture "../../../program%20files/My
Program//ProductPictures/ClothingWomansShoes.jpg" \* MERGEFORMATINNET}

With the first example the code is dynamic and shows the correct picture,
with the second it is static and calls for a specific picture
"ClothingWomansShoes.jpg" and doesn't show any graphic at all. It only
shows a "Place Holder" where the photo should be.

Tried the resolution from Microsoft:
Example:
{INCLUDEPICTURE {MERGEFIELD "Picture"} \*MERGEFORMAT}
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/114306/en-us
And
Example: { IncludePicture "C:\\Data\\Pics\\{ Mergefield Signature \*
upper }" }
From: http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MergFram.htm
And quite a few more.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[oli merge]

YES!!! THANKS!

after doing this bit:

The problem is in Tools/Options/General/Web options/Files. Deactivate the
option to automatically update links when saving. That will stop Word from
making the changes to the field code.

I managed to get it to work after starting the INCLUDEPICTURE from stratch
in the normal manner.

Thanks again

 

[Graham Mayor]

Ah! I had forgotten about that. I must put a note on my web page

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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