empty lines in catalog merge

[Julia]

I am using Publisher 2003 to create a student directory. Some students have
more information to be printed than others. For example, if dad or mom lives
at a different address than the student that entry will have additional
fields. Currently the product of my merge is working fine, but longer than
it needs to be because of many blank lines. I know I can select "dont print
empty lines" in Print Merge, but I want the empty lines to not be in the
merge output. (I am choosing "Create new publication" in the wizard.) I am
taking that merge output and combining it with student/district information
in the final publisher document.

I have gone back through the wizard and can't see a way to not include a
field that is blank.

I would appreciate your help with this.

Thank you,
Julia Skiles

 

[Mary Sauer]

No, there is no way you can eliminate the empty lines when you create a new
publication except manually. I think Word can do something like this by writing
a macro. Maybe if our resident programmer reads this, he can figure out a way.

 

[Julia]

Thanks for the response. I have another idea to get around this problem,
but I haven't been able to figure out if it's possible yet.

My merge output is a document with multiple text boxes on each page. It
would be great to have those boxes be entries in a table, then I could
eliminate the empty lines, but instead of resizing each text box, I could
let Publisher shrink the table. Is there any way to cut the text out of
multiple text boxes and paste it in a table with the option "expand the
selection to fit copied cells"?

Julia

 

[Mary Sauer]

Publisher doesn't have this capability. Tables in Publisher only change when you
manually resize them or use a return inside a cell or have two or more lines of
text that will expand the cell. You can use a table for the merge without text
boxes.

 

[Julia]

Ah, when I said "let Publisher shrink the table", I really meant I would
manually make the table smaller and Publisher would shrink each entry for
me. So I do know how to do that. But I don't understand how a table might
help me in the Merge.

If I put a 1 row table in the Catalog Merge area, then I get a page of
several 1 row tables, each with one student's entry. That doesn't give me
any more flexibility than several text boxes, in terms of ending up with one
table per page that has all the page's entries. I thought that perhaps if I
defined a table with several entries, then Merge might fill the table, but
it only fills the first row of the table, and then fits as many tables as it
can on a page. Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Julia

 

[Mary Sauer]

Julia, You simply are not setting up your catalog merge correctly. You need to
do one merge block with your data. No copying, no pasting. You can put a table
in the catalog block with the field titles in your chosen cells.
There is a Demo here
Demo: Catalog merge turns data into designs
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA010927931033.aspx

 

[Julia]

I watched the demo but do not see how a table is involved. I have done the
wizard and put my fields in the merge area. When you add a field using the
wizard, it creates a text box with the field name inside. I have put all the
fields in one text box within the merge area, so I get a page full of
entries, each in their own text box.. My problem is that some entries need 3
lines, most just 2. I have to go through each page and resize and move up
each text box that needs only 2 lines. Most times I will have enough room on
the page that I can then take boxes from the following page and move them up
a page. This will allow the directory to use less paper.

What I would love is, if after the merge, I have a table on each page. Then
I could delete the blank lines, shorten the table by moving the bottom
boundry up and letting Publisher "resize" each entry, and then move up
entries from the following page by adding rows and cutting/pasting.

Bob Smith lives with both his parents - Ann & Charlie. His entry needs only
two lines, but the blank field in excel will be merged as his 3rd line and I
have to manually delete that line.
John Jones parents are divorced and I need that 3rd line to show his dad's
address and phone number. I have to manually delete the empty line whether
I have text boxes or a table, but with the text boxes I have to resize and
move all those boxes.

Smith, Bob 123 Wide Blvd. 555-1111
Ann & Charlie
<<<<<<<<<<<< manually delete this line>>>>>>>>>>>
Jones, John 123 Main 555-2222
Mary Jones
Joe Jones, 456 Apple, 555-2233
Weng, Tom 123 Chestnut 555-3333
Hope & Frank

Am I making this harder than it needs to be?

Julia

 

[Mary Sauer]

See if this helps
http://msauer.mvps.org/Tutorials.htm

 

[Julia]

Oh! That made it clear. Thank you Mary! Now I have a question about tabs
in tables that I'll ask in a new thread.

Thank you again,
Julia