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can anybody help with a word/excel mail merge query?

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m_s:
i have a big excel file - about 1,000 entries.  it's used for logging names of people responsible for the web-pages i keep up to date.  there's a review-date set for each page, and so every few months i need to write to each person and ask them to check for accuracy, etc., and let me know of any changes that need to be made.

i'm in the process of putting together a word mail merge document that can suck data out of the excel file.  i've got it to work with a single line, but i'm confused about how i can make it work where a person is responsible for several pages.  each page will be on a separate line in the excel file, and i expect there is something boolean that i can do, but i can't figure it...

i want it to check if the name in the 'person responsible' field recurs, and if so to insert the merge field again, and if not move onto the next name in the 'person responsible', and generate a new copy of the letter addressed to that name.  got it?  have i?  or am i asking the wrong question?

any help much appreciated!

Perry Mowbray:
I think you are right: you are asking the wrong question  ;)

I've just had a play with using a series of NEXTIF, SKIPIF, IF's, bookmarks etc but it's all too complex. It's just not the way mail merges are meant to work!

I'd suggest writing a macro to transform your original data source into a one line per person type file: that's the way mail merges should work.

Probably the easiest way to handle the different numbers of 'Pages' for each person is to concatenate them into a single field (possibly with linebreaks if that suits with your letter).

Let me know if you need a hand with the macro.

- Perry

jacidbazz:
Hi there. It would be pretty easy to import the excel list into an access database, create a "group by" person responsible query, and then export from there to word as a mail merge (via tools - office links - merge with word).

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