Printing labels, printing lists, sorting etc..

F

Free Run

I am using Entourage 2004 v. 11.2.3 on a Mac running OSX

I am managing a database of club member's names, addresses, telephone
etc. I need to have a complete list to mail a brochure to (about 500
names) once a year and this list includes a list of 200 or so members,
which change monthly as names are added and get a monthly mailing.

My problems are listed below, some of which I have not been able to
find in this forum others I have but still do not understand. I hope
someone will have the patience to explain this to me.

1. When I print the labels in Word, they are sorted by FIRST NAME, of
all things. They are sorted in the Entourage database by last name, but
print labels sorted by first name. I would LIKE them to print out in
zip code order, since I am doing bulk mailings. This is my most
pressing problem.

2. Do I have to create a separate Entourage list for the active members
names each month? I have them sorted by category, but when I go to Word
and do a mail merge, the labels contain the entire database, not just
the category I have selected.

3. I'd like to have a hard copy of the Entourage database. It appears
there are two ways to print the database: name and phone number, or in
a format with the name address phone etc all on separate lines, which
gives me a 50 page list when I only have 200 names printing out.

(I loved using Panorama, what a versatile way to manage a list, with
Classic, and am about to spend the extra money to upgrade and use it,
Entourage seems extremely unwieldy.)

Thanks in advance! :) Janet
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Hi Janet,

As I understand it, Panorama is quite a bit more powerful, and likely worth
the money. However, at least 2 of your 3 problems have a relatively simple
solution.

Cross-posting to the Word group as these questions are best solved in Word,
not Entourage, and I'm not sure of all the answers.

1) to sort labels by Zip Code--I have no idea. Anyone? You might try
experimenting with the Table | Sort commands in Word after merging the
labels--it isn't working for me, but I don't have the right data or the time
to really play with it, right now (will try next week if possible).

2) to print just the selected names--when in Word, on the Data Merge
Manager, at the bottom of the palette, you will see a button for Query
Options. Click on that to tell Word to merge only a certain category of
names. What you have selected in Entourage is irrelevant (misleadingly).

3) to print a hard copy of the database--use Word, rather than Entourage.
Do the Data Merge by category, as in #2, but instead of a Labels merge, do a
Catalog merge. In the Catalog merge, you can format and arrange the fields
as you wish, and you will have a lot more control than printing from
Entourage (which, as you found, is quite limited).

Hope that helps,
Daiya
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Following up from Daiya's excellent post, I do not believe there is any way
to sort the labels as such - there's no way to get the labels into a Table
by fields.


What you could do instead is to Export your contacts from Entourage to a
tab-delimited text (in Entourage, go to File/Export/Local contacts to a
list). Then open this tab-text file in Excel and sort on the Zip Code field,
and Save (either as text file or Excel .xls file). Then use this (text or
Excel) file, rather than Office Address Book, as your Data Source in Word's
Data Merge Manager, and the resulting labels will all be in the zip-code
order you have sorted them in Excel.

The only snag in this method is that Entourage export does not allow you to
"Query" by category like Word's DMM does, NOR does it include a "Categories"
field! It's all or nothing: you have to export all contacts.

What you can do is this: set aside one of Entourage's custom fields - say,
Custom 8 - that you're not using, and copy the name of the category in to
that field by Applescript:


tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set allContacts to every contact
repeat with i from 1 to (count callContacts)
set theContact to item i of allContacts
tell theContact
try
set categoryName to name of (item 1 of its category)
on error
set categoryName to ""
end try
set its custom field eight to categoryName
end tell
end repeat
beep
display dialog "All Done!"
end tell


(This sets Custom 8 to the name of the _primary_ category, if there is one.
If None, it leaves it blank. There's a reason I I'm not including all
categories ; the Query filter later cannot filter on just part of the field,
there's no "Contains": it can only filter on the whole field.)


Now, when you export your contacts from Entourage, the Custom 8 field will
contain the name of the contacts' category. You could even try skipping the
Excel steps: Word's Data Merge Manager lets you Query on any field you wish,
so choose Custom 8. In the dialog (very different from the one you see with
Office Address Book as data Source), set the field popup to Custom 8, set
Filter to "is equal to " and type "Work", or whatever the name of the
category you want. Then you'll get only those labels. (You'll notice that
you could also choose "Sort" tab and instead sort on the Work_Zip or
Home_Zip field. But it will sort alphabetically rather than numerically
which might create a few hazards.) You can;t do both though.

Best would be to open the exported file in excel, sort by Work Zip or Home
Zip field, save, then do the Data merge in Word and Query on Custom 8 fiel
at the end.

Finally, if even this is cumbersome for you, you could get my "Export-Import
Entourage" shareware scripts and do a Contacts Export, which lets you export
by category (from 1 to 4 of them at a time - you could export several times
to separate files to get separate text files, one per category), and use
those as your data Sources.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
F

Free Run

Thank you both so much, I learned a lot I didn't know. The "help" the
comes with the programs is not very helpful IMO. In the end I may end
up upgrading my Panorama because it's sooooo much easier.
 
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