Omit duplicate contacts, but include selected data for those omitt

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Dimtrax - 08 Jan 2006 15:01 GMT

My issue is two-fold. I am using Office 2003, specifically Word for the
merged letter and an existing Excel spreadsheet for the data.

I have a list of 1000 participants for a sports event. I want to send a
confirmation letter to the participants' coaches, listing their students and
the event for which they are entered. Many coaches have multiple students,
resulting in duplicated merged letters.

In performing the merge, If I deselect the duplicated entries for a coach, I
will be omitting the other required data, namely their other students.

Perhaps my example would help...

I want ONE letter addresssed to COACH #1 to include a complete list of his
10 registered particpants. Beside each name, I want to include the event
category and time of the event, all of which are recorded in the Excel
spreadsheet. All required data is on a single line in the spreadsheet for
each participant.

Can this be done in a single step? Or do I have to manually cut-and-paste
the data from each additional merged letter into a single letter?

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 08 Jan 2006 15:27 GMT

You are trying to perform a "multiple items per condition (=key field)"
mailmerge which Word does not really have the ability to do:

See the "Group Multiple items for a single condition" item on fellow MVP
Cindy Meister's website at

http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/mergfaq1.htm#DBPic

Or take a look at the following Knowledge Base Articles

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302665

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;294686

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

> My issue is two-fold. I am using Office 2003, specifically Word for the
> merged letter and an existing Excel spreadsheet for the data.
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> Can this be done in a single step? Or do I have to manually cut-and-paste
> the data from each additional merged letter into a single letter?

Reply to this Message

RIC - 01 Jun 2006 15:21 GMT

I have been to all three sites and can get this to work only as a directory.
Hoe do I get this to work in a merge letter?

> You are trying to perform a "multiple items per condition (=key field)"
> mailmerge which Word does not really have the ability to do:
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> > Can this be done in a single step? Or do I have to manually cut-and-paste
> > the data from each additional merged letter into a single letter?

Reply to this Message

Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 01 Jun 2006 16:54 GMT

Basically, you can't - Not with mail merge. What is your data source? If
it is Access, I would use a report for it.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>I have been to all three sites and can get this to work only as a
>directory.
[quoted text clipped - 46 lines]
>> > cut-and-paste
>> > the data from each additional merged letter into a single letter?

Reply to this Message