Label question

K

Kyle Burns

I'm helping a friend transition to a new iBook running OS10 from her old
iMac running OS9. One of the few issues remaining is address labels. She
was using an AppleScript that would print address labels based on the
selected entries in her address book. This script requires Akua Sweets,
which I cannot get to load on her OS10 box (I keep getting a message about
needing "classic" loaded).

Our first attempt to get around this was to use the MailMerge feature of
Word X, but it doesn't meet her needs because the MailMerge seems to only
account for a contact being in a single category and the Export Entourage X
script uses delimiters that MailMerge doesn't recognize, so we're back to
square one. I'm a proficient programmer on the PC platform, but have not
done any programming for Mac. My thought is that I need a script to do the
following:

1. Delete a certain file if it already exists
2. Create an empty file
3. Write each selected contact (with delimiters that can be recognized by
MailMerge) out to the file
4. Kick off Word opening a new document based on a template with the
MailMerge set to read the desired file

Can anybody help get me there or give a better suggestion?
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

I'm helping a friend transition to a new iBook running OS10 from her old
iMac running OS9. One of the few issues remaining is address labels. She
was using an AppleScript that would print address labels based on the
selected entries in her address book. This script requires Akua Sweets,
which I cannot get to load on her OS10 box (I keep getting a message about
needing "classic" loaded).

Our first attempt to get around this was to use the MailMerge feature of
Word X, but it doesn't meet her needs because the MailMerge seems to only
account for a contact being in a single category and the Export Entourage X
script uses delimiters that MailMerge doesn't recognize, so we're back to
square one. I'm a proficient programmer on the PC platform, but have not
done any programming for Mac. My thought is that I need a script to do the
following:

1. Delete a certain file if it already exists
2. Create an empty file
3. Write each selected contact (with delimiters that can be recognized by
MailMerge) out to the file
4. Kick off Word opening a new document based on a template with the
MailMerge set to read the desired file

Can anybody help get me there or give a better suggestion?
Click to expand...

I did not adapt the "Office for Office" (NOT Export) scripts for Office v. X
because they're not necessary. Data Merge Manager in Word does allow you to
select contacts in the Address Book in Word. At the very end of the Data
Merge process, click Query button on the bottom. That allows you to select a
category. You can then go through the Address Book window that has come up,
and select (or deselect) individual contacts as well.

If there are too many in the second category to add individually
comfortably, then make a combined category in Entourage first. First make a
new category "Combined Cat" (or whatever). Then make a new Custom View , or
Advanced Find, of Contacts (only)

matching if ANY criteria are met

and specify

Category is cat1
Category is cat2

Now you'll have a list of all contacts of both categories. Select them all
(cmd-A). click on the category column, and click "Assign Category..." so the
big Categories window comes up. Check "Combined Cat", but do NOT check the
box at the bottom that assigns the Primary category. That way they'll keep
the color of their usual category. Click OK.

Back in Word, do the Merge and select "Combined Cat" as the category in
Query. That will do it.


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
K

Kyle Burns

Thanks for the reply, Paul. I'll try to get her to go with the merged
categories. Unfortunately, she's not very comfortable with her ability to
perform multi-step operations and she wants me to find her a way to print
labels that was as simple as your script on her old Mac.
 
K

Kyle Burns

Paul,
Unfortunately your solution "sounded too complicated" and I'm still trying
to find a good way to make the label printing as easy as you made it with
the Entourage 2001 label scripts. How difficult would it be to make a
script that executes you contact export script, does a "find and replace" on
the output file to replace the field and record delimiters with something
mailmerge recognizes and then kicks off word, opening a specified .dot?
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Paul,
Unfortunately your solution "sounded too complicated" and I'm still trying
to find a good way to make the label printing as easy as you made it with
the Entourage 2001 label scripts. How difficult would it be to make a
script that executes you contact export script, does a "find and replace" on
the output file to replace the field and record delimiters with something
mailmerge recognizes and then kicks off word, opening a specified .dot?
Click to expand...

It's not any more complicated once you've done it once. Check the Help for
Data Merge Manager, or How do I do Mailing Labels?, or something like that.

The Office for Office scripts depended on a scripting addition - Akua Sweets
- to activating the preferences, and a lot of other things. Akua Sweets
doesn't work in OS X. In other scripts, I had to come up with new "PREFS"
scripts for dealing with and loading preferences. It's very time-consuming.
To do this for all the Office for Office scripts would take me several
weeks. I'm not doing it, since the scripts are not necessary in Office X. I
only wrote them because office 2001 was released before the Word Mac
developers were able to finish programming data Merge manager in time. (It
was supposed to be done for Word 2001, but missed the boat.) There is
absolutely no reason for me to spend weeks adapting scripts that aren't
needed because one person doesn't want to learn a new method that's actually
easier. Sorry.

Once you get used to Word X's way of doing mail merges, it's a lot quicker
and easier than my scripts. Making the combo-category in Entourage takes 1
minute and you just have to follow my instructions in my ;last message.

So your friend has three choices:

1) Learn to do it with Data Merge Manager , or

2) Never do a mail merge again.

3) Go back to Office 2001 in Classic. (boo)



--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
B

Barry N. Wainwright

It's not any more complicated once you've done it once. Check the Help for
Data Merge Manager, or How do I do Mailing Labels?, or something like that.
Click to expand...

Check out this tutorial:

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/wordx/using.aspx?pid=usingwordx&type=
howto&article=/mac/LIBRARY/how_to_articles/officex/wd_createlabels.xml>

--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see http://mvp.support.microsoft.com for details)
Seen the Entourage FAQ pages? - Check them out:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

Please post responses to this newsgroup. If I ask you to contact me
off-list, remove '.INVALID' from email address before replying.
 
P

Pat

I am using XP mail merge for label and trying the names, however, how do i get a second page to label, the next page does not work. Pleaseeeeeee help
 
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