Re: Help with setting up a conditional merge Excuse me for being old fashion

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Thanks for your reply, it looks complicated but I will try your suggestions.
I need to get away from the old way of doing things even if it means using
different merge letters for the different conditions.


"Peter Jamieson" <pjj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:efO1i96%23HHA.5164@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We used WordStar extensively for merging from the early 1980s until
sometime in the 1990s. In fact, we used its merge facilities to print
almost everything we produced. But the way Word goes about things is
rather different and it can be irritating for people from a WS or WP
background. All I can suggest is that you step through some suggestions
and see if any of them works for you.

In essence, Word wants you to start with a particular document layout, and
to produce copies of that layout for each entry in your "data source".
Although you can "INCLUDE" different texts depending on the values in your
data source, these texts are included into an existing format and layout.
If all your letters (or whatever they are) have identical physical layout,
header and footer margins, and probably identicla headers and footers, you
may be able to use that approach in Word. For example, you might try
putting the following fields in your Mail Merge Main Document:

{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD F32 }" = "Individual Gifts"
"{ INCLUDETEXT "the full pathname of your thksep07.doc file with
backslashes doubled up" }" ""
}{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD F32 }" = "VBS"
"{ INCLUDETEXT "the full pathname of your thksep07.doc file with
backslashes doubled up" }" ""
}{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD F32 }" = "Birdies for Charity"
"{ INCLUDETEXT "the full pathname of your birdies06.doc file with
backslashes doubled up" }" ""
}

and so on, where all the {} are the special field code characters you can
insert using ctrl-F9. I would suggest that you output to a new document,
then select the entire output document, and press F9 to update all those
INCLUDETEXT fields, then
a. see if the output is anything like the output you need
b. print some of the pages and see if that's still what you need.

A potential alternative to this "nested IF" approach is to create files
with names that are related directly to the names in your data source.
Then you can try "inverting" the above approach using e.g.

{ INCLUDETEXT "c:\\myinclude\\{ MERGEFIELD F32 }.doc" }

so you would need a file called "Individual Gifts.doc, a file called
VBS.doc, and so on, in the folder "c:\myincludes"

Otherwise, if your ".fi" files are much more variable (different layouts,
different headings etc.) then you may need to take a different approach.
But maybe you could have a look at the above first.

--
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

"Dale Ramsey" <dramsey@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23lMvw75%23HHA.3400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry I forgot to attach a example. so here it is

"Dale Ramsey" <dramsey@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uhWUB55%23HHA.1212@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello, wondering if anyone could help me do with word 2007 what I now
still
do, using a old DOS program WordStar.

What I have, is one document that is setup to read the data source, then
the
fields, then at least 30 IF and ELSE commands that tell it to print a
certain letter if a field condition is met. Some of these letters may
have
up to 12 more IF and ELSE commands in them depending on a different
field
condition being met to print a different letter.

Thanks

Dale








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