mail merge from word with outlook

[grace]

I see many are having this problem, including me. It
appears as if there's a glitch in Outlook, which is
confusing "job title" with "title". It looks like Outlook's
"Job Title" field is merging into word as the "Title" field
with the following results in the greeting line, for
example: Dear Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee
Jones:, rather than Dear Mr. Jones:. Moreover, I don't see
a Title field and don't see a way to create one. The links
mentioned don't appear to address this. Thanks for your help.

grace

 

[Graham Mayor]

Start your merge from Outlook -
http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm which provides access to
*all* the fields.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Peter Jamieson]

This is a really confusing area. There are at least three ways to get data
from Outlook and what happens depends on which version of Word you are using
as well.

If you are using Word 2000 or earlier, typically you will connect to the
data using the Mail Merge Helper. In this case, the Job Title is called
Title, and the other title is called Courtesy Title or Courtesy_Title. This
may vary depending precisely where the address are and how you are getting
them.

If you are using Word 2002 or later, the obvious way to get the data is to
use the Mailmerge Wizard and selecting a Contacts list. However, in this
case you will typically only see a courtesy title, called Title.

To get both titles and see the largest number of fields, the simplest
approach is often to initiate the merge from Outlook. This is possible in
Outlook 2000 and later. Select a contact list, use Outlook Tools|Mail Merge,
and take it from there. The courtesy title should be called Title and the
Job title "Job Title" or "Job_Title". If you are using the fields in the
ADDRESSBLOCK field you may need to "map" the field names correctly.

In Word 2002/2003 it is possible to connect using the old Mail Merge Helper
method, but let's not go into that.

A further source of possible confusion in Word 2002/2003 is the "field
mapping" facility. In essence, Word has a fixed list of "address" field
names. When it opens a data source, it tries to "map" the field names it
finds - which are called the "database" field names onto the address field
names. If you insert individual fields (MERGEFIELD fields) into your mail
merge main document

{ MERGEFIELD "xyz" } means "use the Database field called 'xyz'"
{ MERGEFIELD "xyz" \m } means "use the Address field called 'xyz'"

By default Word typically maps the Database Title field to the Address
"Courtesy title" field and the Database Job Title field (where it exists) to
the Address "Title" field. This presumably reflects the historical fact that
someone changed the standard names for these things, and Word probably does
the right thing given that there are different lists of names, but it can be
really confusing.

 

[Grace Walker]

Thanks, Peter, for the detailed explanation. What I ended up doing is
deleting the ADDRESSBLOCK grouping and the GREETING grouping and
putting in individual fields because I didn't know how to remap them,
and it worked. What I'm trying to do is create a Word document that
pulls in addressee information from Outlook. It seems to work OK. I
also inserted some autotextlists, which also is working. My problem
now is how to make it portable to transfer to work. Any ideas?

 

[Grace Walker]

Thanks, Graham, this is good information. I don't think it's quite
what I'm looking for now but I hadn't tried to initiate from Outlook
because I didn't know that a preprepared merge source document could
be used and the merge letter formats available were totally
unacceptable to my needs. Appreciate your help. My next problem is
portability. I worked out the kinks in the Word document and it works
fine now. What do I need to do to make it work on another machine with
its Outlook contacts? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

There are many general barriers to porting mailmerge applications - it's
difficult to cover them all (even if I could remember them ). In this
particular case the main issue is likely to be that the user will have to
re-initiate the merge (how it was initiated in the first place). They are
very likely to lose any sort/filter defined in Word as they do so.

If you initiate from Outlook, what you need to do is put the document in an
easily accessed folder on the user's machine and get them to select the
correct options in Outlook's Tools|Mail Merge dialog box, which lets the
user select an existing document or template. Outlook then exports the data
to a temporary file and automates Word to get it to set up that file as a
data source. It is probably best to encourage the user not to keep multiple
versions of the mail merge main document open as there are likely to be
problems with temp file creationand naming.

If you are encountering a specific difficulty, let us know.