Help getting database into Word label template

[Pitch]

I'm running the latest version of Word (11.2) on my PowerPC G5 Mac (OS
10.4.7).

I have a Word database that has 1500 mailing addresses (Records). I am
trying to create mailing labels (Avery 5160 3x10 ones would be fine)
from this database, but am getting stuck.

My database of mailing addresses (i.e., Records) is cleaned up. I have
tabs between each field (Name, Address, City/St/Zip) and Paragraph
Returns between each new Record. Via Word's "Find & Replace" I could
change these delimiters to others, if it helps (i.e., I know how to use
that Word feature).

Some Records have 3 lines per Record, but some have 4 and even 5. In
other words, some look like this:

XYZ Business
123 Pine
Denver, CO 80302

and some look like this

XYZ Business
Jon Smith, accountanting dept.
123 Pine
Denver, CO 80302

However, when I choose Project Gallery: Labels: Mailing Label Wizard:
Avery Standard 5160, and go through the steps of the Data Merge
Manager, and then point to this cleaned-up database, I get this
message:

"Record 1 does not have the same number of fields at the first row in
My Name Database.doc. Ensure that all records have the same number of
fields."

If I'm understanding this message correctly, it means that every Record
needs to have the exact same number of lines in it. In other words,
every Record needs to have 4 lines.

Is this correct? If so, how do I go about making all 1500 Records have
the same number of lines.

Or, more accurately: what is the easiest way to get my database into
labels? I don't care how it's done, I just need to know the method.

I successfully placed my database into an Excel doc, but I got the same
error message.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Pitch (no pun intended) -

Your interpretation is correct - there must be the same number of fields for
each record. IOW - to use your samples it should look more like this
(although my 'columns' may not align properly due to the medium of the
message);

BusinessName Contact Title Address1
Address2 City State Zip
XYZ Business 123
Pine Denver CO 80302
XYZ Buisness John Smith accounting dept.

It's best if you do this with a Word Table or an Excel file, but first you
will need to accurately insert additional presses of the Tab key as
"placeholders". If there is no data for any given record in a certain
field/column (such as a Contact Name), the Tab key still needs to be pressed
again before the next field of data.

Once that is taken care of you can just select the list of records then go
to Table>Convert>Convert Text to Table *or* take it into Excel.
Unfortunately there really isn't a shortcut unless each record that needs to
be modified requires the same change - each record will have to be edited as
necessary in order to get the number of fields to be the same as the others.
It might help if you select the entire content of the file, then set custom
tab stops to get the columns of data to be more easily readable. Then you
can go through the list more quickly and better be able to determine where
the tab key needs to be pressed.

Another option would be to convert the text-to-table first (specifying the
higher number of columns) & then use drag'n'drop or cut'n'paste to move the
necessary data to the correct column.

There's also the possibility that someone may come along to offer a VBA
solution, but it seems to me - based on my understanding of your data - that
even a good macro is going to need a fair amount of 'cleaning up' after.

When you do the merge Word will 'close the gaps' for any rows in a label if
there is no data to print on that row.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

This may be easy to achieve as long as the content at the end of each record
is very consistent. (I'm working on the Windows Word right now so am not
certain all this is the same on the Mac version.)

For example, if /every/ record ends with a 2-letter state, followed by a
single space, followed by a 5-digit zip, then you can use

Find/Replace to replace (say)

^$^$ ^#^#^#^#^#
by
@@@@@

then follow Graham Mayor's instructions at

http://www.gmayor.com/convert_labels_into_mail_merge.htm

(At the point where he has just done the equivalent replacement)

After you have done that, to get back to the situation where you have no
table, but the same number of lines per record, select the table, and
convert table to text, selecting paragraph marks as the "Separate text with"
character.

However, I'm not sure that will actually work as a suitable data source for
a merge. You might be better off leaving the data in the tabular format as
Graham suggests. An alternative is to change his approach a bit as follows:

When you convert text to table, choose
Number of columns: 1
Separate text at: Paragraphs

You then end up with each address in a single cell of a 1-column table.
However, the lines are separated by tabs, so as a final step you need to
find ^t and replace by ^p (or perhaps find ^t and replace by ^l). Then make
sure it's usable in Data Merge.

Personally, I think that's the best format for small-scale work with
addresses where you do not need to pick out spcific items such as Street,
etc., whether you store each address in a single Word cell or a single Excel
cell, but if you are planning on building a much larger database of
addresses then it's advisable to start structuring them in a useful way now.

Peter Jamieson