printing on postcard problem

R

Rob

I'm tearing my hair out over here on something that should be simple. I'm
printing on 4x6 postcards, however my printer will not accept the postcards
with the short edge pointing inwards. (when it feeds the cards in, it slips
every time and I lose a couple of inches of print, they are glossy... with
them oriented the long way, the printer has more rollers against the card
and grabs them better). So, I'm trying to feed them in along the long edge.

No matter how I set the page layout or the printer driver orientation, it
wants to print the documents as though they were being fed in along the
short edge. Basically I need to rotate everything 90 degrees.

I'm using Word to do this because it's a mail merge document where I'm
pulling in records from an Excel spreadsheet and have several hundred
postcards to print.

Thanks for any help.
 
R

Rob

But then the text needs to be rotated 90 degrees as I need the text to be
oriented along
the long edge of the card.
 
R

Rob

I guess I didn't see. That didn't work, but I have it working now by
changing around paper dimensions, which is
probably exactly what you were trying to tell me to do :).
 
L

Les Golden, Oak Park, Illinois

Here's my problem. I designed a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 postcard, with two columns,
one for message and one for mail merge address. I perform the merge. Now I
have 400 postcards of that dimension. But I want to print out 4 at a time on
an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. I'm using Word 97. How do I format that? If I simply
lay them side by side, the columns run over. Should I be using "Break" from
the Insert tab somehow. Never have had luck with that.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

You need to start with the appropriate "label" definition, such as Avery
3263, which has the postcards 4-up. This is set up as a table, so be sure
you have table gridlines displayed (Table | Show Gridlines) so you can see
the card boundaries. You will not be able to use columns; you'll need to
split each table cell into two. I would suggest that you do this *after*
inserting the merge fields and propagating them to the other cards;
otherwise you'll end up with merge fields in every cell, and you'll have to
remove them from half of them.



<Les Golden>; <Oak Park>; "Illinois" <Les Golden, Oak Park,
[email protected]> wrote in message
 
L

Les Golden, Oak Park, Illinois

Dear Suzanne: Thanks for helping. nfortuately, my Word 97 lacks the 3263
form, and I've not been able to downlaod the Avery Wizard from avery.com. I
tried the following two solutions. First, I constructed my postcard,
complete with the merge codes without columns, and then I copied it and laid
out a sheet of 4 on the standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Now of course when I do
the merge I get 400 sheets each with 4 cards with the same mailing address.
So the problem now is how do I get 4 different addresses per sheet. I saw a
solution somewhre on your site using Publisher, but I only have Word 97.
Second, i just laid out the text of my postcard 4 times, then inserted the
merge codes separately. Then I merge, but the same problem occurs, 4
identical addresses on each of the 400 sheets. Thanks for your speedy reply
to my first inquiry. Les Golden
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I feel sure that Word 97 includes some Avery stock number for postcards if
you will just look. If not, it is easy enough to define a custom label
definition.

To have more than one address on a page, you need to include a «Next Record»
field at the end of each card.



<Les Golden>; <Oak Park>; "Illinois"
 
G

Graham Mayor

With regard to the «Next Record» field, note that this field is normally
placed at the beginning of each card (or label) EXCEPT the first. If you put
it at the end of each card, then omit the field from the last card or the
merge will skip a record for each page.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Thanks, Graham. I knew the first part of that but not the last. It's rather
illogical, isn't it?
 
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