get mail merge data from two different files

[mnm_nut]

I have a Word form letter that I am merging with addresses from an Excel file
(Office 2003)- that excel file has a LTTRCD colm - can I create another Excel
file with all the possible LTTRCDs in colm A, with a different "paragraph"
keyed into colm B - then as the name/addr is merged into the letter - can I
use the LTTRCD to lookup or 'pull' the 'paragraph' from the other file to
jump into the middle of my letter "and" assume the formatting of the body of
the letter...? so I am actually trying to pull data from two different
sources at the same time.. any help appreciated... I'm working with Office
2003. lms

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

If there are not too many LETTCD values to deal with, you could do it by
using If...then...Else... fields.

If number of LTTRCD values makes that too difficult, in Excel, you should
be able to set up a third worksheet that uses a Lookup function to produce a
data source that contains all of the LTTRCD's from you first file with the
appropriate "paragraph" for each in a cell on the same row.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[mnm_nut]

I have too many LTTRCDs to check to pull in with "IF... Then"... I can figure
out how to pull the 'paragraph' into my existing excel address file using
VLOOKUP... but didn't wanna have to go that way - some files have over 1,000
entries.. would be kinda bulky. Found some stuff about queries & external
data sources... but I wanted to use a "merge field" as the "lookup" key...
can't seem to find if Word has something similar to the vlookup function...
still need help... thnx...

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

How about using an { INCLUDETEXT "Filename" { MERGEFIELD LTTRCD } } field
where you have the various text items in another file (Filename} and you
assign a bookmark to each of them with the bookmark names corresponding to
the entries in the LTTRCDs field

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Word doesn't have a VLLOOKUP except in the sense that Doug has suggested
where you use an INCLUDETEXT to grab the contents of a named bookmark.

However, if you get your Excel data via a query you can "join" two
worksheets in the way you want - you may be able to do it by creating a
query in MS Query, if that is installed on your system, or you can try using
a Word VBA OpenDataSource with a suitable bit of SQL. However, that's only
likely to work if each of your texts is less than around 255 characters
long.

Peter Jamieson