D
David W Powell
I share this in case it saves someone else some time.
Obviously for some it will be "so what?".
I wanted to have a Publisher-designed page appear twice per sheet, with a
couple of fields changing each time.
While a "mail merge"-type facility exists in Publisher (as at Publisher
2003), my first attempts were disappointing.
To make it work for this purpose, I needed to:
i) From Tools>Mail and Catalog merge>[...] Wizard, choose the Catalog
function. This is how to get multiple customised "blocks" onto a page.
ii) Set your page margins to zero. (Arrange>Layout Guides>Margin Guides).
This solved the key problem for me [Note 1]. The Publisher Wizard will
honour these as limits (even though as a direct user you might ignore them).
iii) You can now successfully resize the box that appears as a repeating
group container. The advice about the number of items "down" and "across"
changes as you resize the box. For the example of two landscape A5
certificates per portrait A4 page, you will want to drag the bottom border
down until you are advised that only 1 item will fit "down". Then nudge a
mite up so that it (again) reports "2" (i.e., "Area will repeat 2 down by 1
across").
[Note 1]. If I used default top and bottom page margin guides, it was
impossible to align the two pages nicely on the sheet. The software was
allowing for extra space, beyond the space already allowed for in the
certificate design. As long as there is sufficient white space at the
borders of your designed page, there is no need to worry about losing
anything when setting the physical margins to zero. I didn't expect this to
work, because of the connotation of the word "Guides" in "Margin Guides".
These particular guides are actually heeded very usefully by the software.
Obviously for some it will be "so what?".
I wanted to have a Publisher-designed page appear twice per sheet, with a
couple of fields changing each time.
While a "mail merge"-type facility exists in Publisher (as at Publisher
2003), my first attempts were disappointing.
To make it work for this purpose, I needed to:
i) From Tools>Mail and Catalog merge>[...] Wizard, choose the Catalog
function. This is how to get multiple customised "blocks" onto a page.
ii) Set your page margins to zero. (Arrange>Layout Guides>Margin Guides).
This solved the key problem for me [Note 1]. The Publisher Wizard will
honour these as limits (even though as a direct user you might ignore them).
iii) You can now successfully resize the box that appears as a repeating
group container. The advice about the number of items "down" and "across"
changes as you resize the box. For the example of two landscape A5
certificates per portrait A4 page, you will want to drag the bottom border
down until you are advised that only 1 item will fit "down". Then nudge a
mite up so that it (again) reports "2" (i.e., "Area will repeat 2 down by 1
across").
[Note 1]. If I used default top and bottom page margin guides, it was
impossible to align the two pages nicely on the sheet. The software was
allowing for extra space, beyond the space already allowed for in the
certificate design. As long as there is sufficient white space at the
borders of your designed page, there is no need to worry about losing
anything when setting the physical margins to zero. I didn't expect this to
work, because of the connotation of the word "Guides" in "Margin Guides".
These particular guides are actually heeded very usefully by the software.