Merge Excel Data to Word documents then email individual letters

[MarvInBoise]

I have successful merge of Excel/Word to generate letters; however, I now
need to fax (via Outlook email) "each individual letter," which they are not.
My Word merge just creates one document with many letters. How can I best
do this? Thanks!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

In theory you are supposed to do this by choosing a different type of e-mail
(i.e. an e-mail merge rather than a letter merge. You have to tell Word
which field in your data source contains an appropriately formatted fax
address for each letter. Obviously, Outlook needs to be set up to send faxes
(probably via an Internet fax service.

I would try that with a small sample, sending to your own fax, and see if
you can get it to work. But which version of Outlook/Office and Windows are
you using?

Peter Jamieson

 

[MarvInBoise]

Yes, I can get the email portion to work and I have the email/fax number
generated in my Excel file that I use to merge, but I have to merge my Word
document with the Excel file first to generate lettters for each selection in
the Excel file; it's the merge you helped me with last week that pulls
certain paragraphs into the Word "result" based on field in the Excel file;
that works fine and generates letters for me. But now I need to email/fax
those same letters using the same Excel database, BUT the mail merge has
generated one document with many letters.

Thanks!
--
Marv Lusk
Boise Corporation

In theory you are supposed to do this by choosing a different type of e-mail
(i.e. an e-mail merge rather than a letter merge. You have to tell Word
which field in your data source contains an appropriately formatted fax
address for each letter. Obviously, Outlook needs to be set up to send faxes
(probably via an Internet fax service.

I would try that with a small sample, sending to your own fax, and see if
you can get it to work. But which version of Outlook/Office and Windows are
you using?

Peter Jamieson

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Sorry, I must still be missing something.

If you're using a Letter merge, it should be possible to convert it to an
e-mail merge: the main difference is that the letters get sent as individual
e-mails rather than going to a (single) file. If you're using a
catalog/directory merge, that won't work of course. Can you reming me why
you have to do the merge to a new document first?

Peter Jamieson

Yes, I can get the email portion to work and I have the email/fax number
generated in my Excel file that I use to merge, but I have to merge my
Word
document with the Excel file first to generate lettters for each selection
in
the Excel file; it's the merge you helped me with last week that pulls
certain paragraphs into the Word "result" based on field in the Excel
file;
that works fine and generates letters for me. But now I need to email/fax
those same letters using the same Excel database, BUT the mail merge has
generated one document with many letters.

Thanks!

 

[MarvInBoise]

Well, I thought that's what I had to do; the Word letter can have up to 4
different paragraphs inserted based on code in Excel file--L,C,W,G
paragraphs--letters are also generated based on a date range input during
Excel "cleanup" via InputBox. Word then merges with the "result" Excel file
to generate the letters; I then need to fax the letters. In reality, I don't
really need to generate the hardcopy letter before faxing, but...need help
with that.

And per your earlier question, I'm using Office2003.

Thanks again.

 

[MarvInBoise]

Well DUH, I merged to email instead of document, and that worked, but boy did
it come up many pages and UGLY, especially the signature I have in the Word
document. The email/fax image looks nothing like my Word merge documents.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

The email/fax image looks nothing like my Word merge documents.

I had a bad feeling about that, but it was probably worth a try. Are you
using an Internet fax service or a traditional modem connection? In the
latter case, there is a way to fix it, but it's yet more stuff to absorb and
get working:

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0001.htm

Getting it working with one of the Internet fax services is another
question - it may be possible, but it probably depends on the service.

Peter Jamieson

 

[MarvInBoise]

No, just using Exchange server and Outlook with Rightfax under the covers,
i.e., sends "fax" as the format vs. SMTP.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Well, I can't help you with the detail there, but if you are allowed to send
faxes by printing to a Rightfax printer driver (rather than via Outlook)
then the code in the article I mentioned is probably still relevant - I see
there are also one or two relevant examples on the Rightfax technical
support site.

Peter Jamieson