Mail merge help with directory/catalog

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Hi All

I am a novice to mail merge, used it over the years to create letters where I insert names and addresses but thats my lot.

I have been given a pre made template to use as a certificate where data is merged for all of the individuals times and events, (1 cert per person, that person could have anything from 1 swim to 17 swims)

I want to change the look of the certificate (background pic, formatting etc) but am struggling to do this without breaking the mail merge.

I also need to get all the events aligned left in a column or table and all the times aligned left in one column or table (if you run the merge from the attached docs you should see my issue I think.

I have tried reading through some of the many tutorials on the web including the one on here and just keep getting confused, I am not sure what I am actually tried to do when it comes to keys etc.

I could really do with some help with this.

My plan was to create a new cert with similar text but add a table under it with 18 rows and 2 columns, I could then put the event in one column and the time in the other column, will this work?

How do I do this (I know the most of formatting in word but not a lot about mail merge.

Any help would be great.
45770-my-spreadsheet145771-Merge-Doc-1

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The simplest solution is to use a letters merge with http://www.gmayor.com/ManyToOne.htm
It will need some changes to your worksheet to make it viable and some changes to the document itself, but it does the job.

45778-many2One-1

45779-many2One-2

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Hi Graham

Thank you for your reply, I am busy all weekend, I add 15 minutes to look at it last night, the screen shots you sent look like what I want, I tried it without reading the post properly, so when I used it, I just got 1 record per page, I am assuming, using the addon, this will sort this issue out?

Does this addon only work on windows PC’s or on mac’s too? I use both but prefer to use the mac.

Is there another way of doing the same this without the addon? the reason I ask is, I am doing this currently but it will be someone elses job in a couple of years and I would like to make it easy to hand over for the future.

Cheers

Darren

The simplest solution is to use a letters merge with http://www.gmayor.com/ManyToOne.htm
It will need some changes to your worksheet to make it viable and some changes to the document itself, but it does the job.

45778-many2One-1

45779-many2One-2

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The add-in was intended to make a complex task easier for the user. It works only on PCs. If you want to do it the hard way, look at Paul Edsteins mail merge tutorial (catalog mailmerge.zip) which you can find at http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm .

Using the add-in, and the two attachments I returned, set the key field as Name and the child fields as the other two fields and merge to individual documents to get the result I posted. better still read the web page so that you understand the process.

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Hi Graham

Thanks for the reply again, I have been trying to use the add-in and cannot get it to work, I was trying to create my own mail merge without success so decided to download your files and try to run them, I still got the same fault returned.

Each time I run the mail merge I get an error saying “array index out of bounds”

I do not know if I am doing something wrong and if I am, what I am doing wrong?

I am running office pro plus 2010 on a windows 7 operating system.

Hopefully I am just missing something?

Cheers

Darren

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The process is explained on my web site. The screen shots in my earlier post were produced by merging many to one to individual Word documents. The key field is Name, as is the filename field. The child fields are the two fields in the table.

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You can also use Word’s Catalogue/Directory Mailmerge facility for this (the terminology depends on the Word version). To see how to do so with any mailmerge data source supported by Word, check out my Microsoft Word Catalogue/Directory Mailmerge Tutorial in the ‘Sticky’ thread at the top of this forum:
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//154370-Microsoft-Word-Catalogue-Directory-Mailmerge-Tutorial
The tutorial covers everything from list creation to the insertion & calculation of values in multi-record tables in letters. Do read the tutorial before trying to use the mailmerge document included with it.

The field coding for this is complex. However, since the tutorial document includes working field codes for all of its examples, most of the hard work has already been done for you – you should be able to do little more than copy/paste the relevant field codes into your own mailmerge main document, substitute/insert your own field names and adjust the formatting to get the results you desire. For some worked examples, see the attachments to the posts at:
http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/9180-mail-merge-duplicate-names-but-different-dollar.html#post23345
http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/11436-access-word-creating-list-multiple-records.html#post30327
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//157725-Word-2010-Merge-from-excel-into-Table-Directory?p=928391&viewfull=1#post928391

Another option would be to use a DATABASE field in a normal ‘letter’ mailmerge main document and a macro to drive the process. An example of this approach can be found at:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/many-to-one-email-merge-using-tables/8bce1798-fbe8-41f9-a121-1996c14dca5d
The DATABASE field can even be used without recourse to a mailmerge. An example of such usage can be found at:
http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/21847-mail-merge-into-different-coloumns.html#post67097

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Hi Graham/Paul

Thanks for the replies, I have been just too busy to sit and look at this until tonight.

Graham, I really want to get this system working, I have looked through the documents but cannot see why I am getting the “array out of bounds” error (I have attached a screen shot of the error. I would like to make the addin work as it appears once it is working and I know what to do, I can easiely train and hand it over in future years.

Paul, I did look through some of the links you supplied, and will at some point try to teach myself how this whole thing works but I cannot see my replacement wanting to do so, this means I need to make it as easy as possible.

I am getting the array error very early in the merge system, I save the document as asked to, then get the filter page (it does not matter what I do on the filter page) after this I get the error, I do not get to the point where I am asked to input the key field or child fields. I have now put a tick in the box so it does not show the filter page thinking this may help, it is doing exactly the same but now does not show the filter page, I do not know how to get the filter page back if I need to.

Hope you know what I am doing wrong as I do not have a clue.

…I found the button to reactivate the filter page, I still cant get it to work though.

Darren

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If you wish to discuss issues with my add-in, please contact me via my web site.

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