mail merge problem

[JoeWebMan]

My question regards the mail merge feature in Word, using an MS Access
database for the data source.


I want to set up a name/address Word file for about 1250 institutions. Here
is the layout I want, using three columns:


State (centered, bolded, larger font)

City (centered, bolded, slightly smaller font)

Institution name
Address
phone number
etc.
etc.
(NOT city or state here)

Next entry

Next entry, etc.

The goal is to have each state and city listed only once. For example, there
might be 100 entries under the state name of New York, and 50 entries under
the city name of New York City, but I want each state and city name listed
only once. However, when I try to format this using mail merge, each city and
state is repeated for each of the 1250 entries. Is there a way to program the
mail merge to say "only list the state and city names the first time and NOT
after that"? If not, are you aware of another application that might do this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Joe

 

[Doug Robbins]

I would suggest that you use an Access report, which can handle this quite
well.

Word does not really have the ability to perform a "multiple items per
condition (=key field)" mailmerge.

See the "Group Multiple items for a single condition" item on fellow MVP
Cindy Meister's website at

http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/mergfaq1.htm#DBPic

Or take a look at the following Knowledge Base Article

How to Work Around Duplicate Names in Mail Merge Data

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302665



Or, if you create a Catalog (on in Word XP and later, it's called Directory)
type mailmerge main document with the mergefields in the cells of a one row
table in the mailmerge main document with the keyfield in the first cell in
the row and then execute that merge to a new document and then run the
following macro, it will create separate tables with the records for each
key field in them. With a bit of further development, you may be able to
get it to do what you want.

' Macro to create multiple items per condition in separate tables from a
directory type mailmerge

Dim source As Document, target As Document, scat As Range, tcat As Range
Dim data As Range, stab As Table, ttab As Table
Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long, n As Long
Set source = ActiveDocument
Set target = Documents.Add
Set stab = source.Tables(1)
k = stab.Columns.Count
Set ttab = target.Tables.Add(Range:=Selection.Range, numrows:=1,
numcolumns:=k - 1)
Set scat = stab.Cell(1, 1).Range
scat.End = scat.End - 1
ttab.Cell(1, 1).Range = scat
j = ttab.Rows.Count
For i = 1 To stab.Rows.Count
Set tcat = ttab.Cell(j, 1).Range
tcat.End = tcat.End - 1
Set scat = stab.Cell(i, 1).Range
scat.End = scat.End - 1
If scat <> tcat Then
ttab.Rows.Add
j = ttab.Rows.Count
ttab.Cell(j, 1).Range = scat
ttab.Cell(j, 1).Range.Paragraphs(1).PageBreakBefore = True
ttab.Rows.Add
ttab.Cell(j + 1, 1).Range.Paragraphs(1).PageBreakBefore = False
For n = 2 To k
Set data = stab.Cell(i, n).Range
data.End = data.End - 1
ttab.Cell(ttab.Rows.Count, n - 1).Range = data
Next n
Else
ttab.Rows.Add
For n = 2 To k
Set data = stab.Cell(i, n).Range
data.End = data.End - 1
ttab.Cell(ttab.Rows.Count, n - 1).Range = data
Next n
End If
Next i


--
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