Mailmerge with tab problem

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Feehan - 28 Jan 2004 08:46 GMT

I have a letter to mail using Word to inform clients of their balances. I have the account numbers and balances in Excel. The format I'd prefer to use would look like:
26998-00 $15,000.00 26998-18 $25,638.38
26998-62 $ 3,452.30 26998-64 $ .62

I cannot get these results if the client does not have all the accounts I have instructed merge to look for. eg. If the client does not have a 26998-62 account, I'd like 26998-64 to move on over to where 26998-62 is located instead of leaving a blank spot. It looks really awkward when I have 10 possible accounts available and the client is only using 2 of them - one account in the upper left corner and maybe the other account in the bottom right corner...or whatever combination.
I eliminated the extra tabs and that helped with the columns lining up...fixed that! But, now I don't want blank lines. If I order the mail merges as one account/balance for each line, then the blank lines are eliminated. Can I eliminate the blank spaces when an account/balance under a certain tab does not apply?
I'm using MSOffice Professional 2000.

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Peter Jamieson - 28 Jan 2004 12:28 GMT

I think you will have to use some (additional) IF field conditions to keep
track of which column you last used, and use different branches of the IF to
output either a paragraph mark followed by the data or a tab followed by the
data.

e.g. you will need something like

{ SET COLUMN "R" } each time you process a new customer and

{ IF { REF COLUMN } = "R"
"{ SET COLUMN "L"<enter>{ MERGEFIELD account }<tab>{ MERGEFIELD amount }"
"{ SET COLUMN "R"<tab>{ MERGEFIELD account }<tab>{ MERGEFIELD amount }"
}

nested inside existing checks on whether you are going to print a record or
not. (where <enter> would just be a paragraph mark).

Whether that can be fitted into your existing nest of field codes I cannot
tell.

--
Peter Jamieson - Word MVP
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org/

> I have a letter to mail using Word to inform clients of their balances. I have the account numbers and balances in Excel. The format I'd prefer to use

would look like:

> 26998-00 $15,000.00 26998-18 $25,638.38
> 26998-62 $ 3,452.30 26998-64 $ .62
>
> I cannot get these results if the client does not have all the accounts I have instructed merge to look for. eg. If the client does not have a

26998-62 account, I'd like 26998-64 to move on over to where 26998-62 is
located instead of leaving a blank spot. It looks really awkward when I have
10 possible accounts available and the client is only using 2 of them - one
account in the upper left corner and maybe the other account in the bottom
right corner...or whatever combination.

> I eliminated the extra tabs and that helped with the columns lining up...fixed that! But, now I don't want blank lines. If I order the mail

merges as one account/balance for each line, then the blank lines are
eliminated. Can I eliminate the blank spaces when an account/balance under a
certain tab does not apply?

> I'm using MSOffice Professional 2000.

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