Mail Merge (2002)

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Hello everyone:

I am trying to do a mail merge, and I am having problems with the Dear Mr. Smith. I don’t see the Dear Mr. Smith showing.

Thanks

dillon

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How you do this depends on your data source and your main document. If your data source has a “title” field (e.g., Mr., Ms., Dr.) and a last name/surname field, you can insert mergefields for both of those into your main document where you want your salutation to appear. This may appear to duplicate fields that are in your address block, but Word doesn’t mind: you can repeat them as often as you like.

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Hello jscher2000:

thank for your support, I understand what you mean, one of the problems that I had was that some of the addresses are male, and some female, there is nothing that allows you to automactically change Mr. to Mrs.

this needs to be done manually; I found it easier to use the “insert merge fields” button.

Again, thanks for your support

dillon

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If you have a field in the data source that indicates gender, you can use an IF field to insert Mr. or Mrs. as appropriate. Click the Insert Word Field button on the Mail Merge toolbar, If … Then … Else … will be one of the available options.

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Hello HansV:

I am using word 2002, so I will have to check, I found the “insert word field” I noticed that it has the “if..then..else option, I will play with and see what I can do.

With the initial data source that I created, I did not use Mr. or Mrs; so I might have to go back and edit my data source.

Thank you,

dillon

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How do you see whether a record is for a male or a female person? If only by the first name (Dick or Jane), it’ll have to be manual.

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Hi dillon,

If your database has a sex field (M/F), then you could use and IF test coded like:
{IF{MERGEFIELD Sex}= M Mr Ms}
Note that I used the ambiguous Ms for the female result – unless you’ve got something to indicate marital status, or at least Miss/Ms/Mrs preference, Ms seems the safest result to use. Mind you, addressing professional people with Mr/Ms instead of Dr, Prof, etc is a minefield too.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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> Mind you, addressing professional people with Mr/Ms instead of Dr, Prof, etc is a minefield too.

I usually add an “honorific” field to my databases when there’s any possibility I’ll use it for a letter. That way, when filling in the new record information I have the choice of whether to use Mr/Ms/Dr., etc.

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Hello Everyone:

Thanks Macropod: for the insert merge code, just to confirm with you; I have my main document and I used the “Insert Word Field” to be able to setup the addresses, instead of the “Insert Address Block”

With the Salutation (Dear Mr. So and so) I just typed the word Dear and then I went back and used the “Insert word Field” again for the “Last Name” merge field.

How would I use your merge field that you have provided for me?

Thanks for your input Hans, Samantha, much appreciated. At the moment I am crunched for time, so I did exactly what Hans suggested, I did it manually.

dillon

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Hi Dillon,

Perhaps the easiest way is to use the coding I suggested is to press Ctrl-F9 twice, to create a pair of nested fields, thus ‘{ { } }’ and type the text from my previous post within them so that you end up with:
{IF{MERGEFIELD Sex}= M Mr Ms}
Change ‘Sex’ to whatever field identifier your source data have.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Hello Macropod:

I went back into my main document, and review the recipient list, I went into customize, and realise that I would be able to add Mr or Mrs or Ms

I will go into the main document and use your code, I just wanted to confirm that your code would go on the salutation line, I am sure that it does. Please see the following attachment,

dillon

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(Edited by macropod on 03-Jun-06 08:16. A couple of words were missed out when first posted.)

Hi Dillon,

Yes, that’s where it would go – before the First_Name field on the address line too, if you want. Note that, after you’ve done the coding, it won’t show up the same way as the other mergefields – it’ll simply default to ‘Ms’.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Hello Macropod:

I personally do not use Mr. or Ms. Mrs. on the addresse block any longer, however, I do use it on the Salutation line of course, including the labels also.

I am doing a large mailout for a client and he was in a rush, since I have completed the merge manually, I will test this out over the weekend. I took a look at “Osbourne complete reference” and the instructions are very minimal.

Thank you for your support Macropod, I will test your code tomorrow, so please stay tuned. Yesterday, I used the receipient list to do my labels and everything worked out fine. Now I am just going to print the merge.

dillon

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