Hatrack River Forum: MS Word/Outlook help -- Mail merges

This is topic MS Word/Outlook help -- Mail merges in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/main/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=048386

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

Trying to quickly find out how to do three things, and I bet Hatrack can help me.

1) How do I link the letterhead (as a header) of each saved form letter to one primary template, so that when I make changes to it, they are reflected on all my form letters?

2) When I use the mail merge, is there a way to have the contact record in Outlook reflect that a specific form letter was generated, and on what date?

3) When I do a mail merge, is there any way to have it merge the same list to more than one document, or do I have to just do the merge a second time on the same highlighted list?

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

quote:
How do I link the letterhead (as a header) of each saved form letter to one primary template, so that when I make changes to it, they are reflected on all my form letters?

You want the INSERTTEXT or INSERTFILE Word merge field.

quote:
When I use the mail merge, is there a way to have the contact record in Outlook reflect that a specific form letter was generated, and on what date?

You can do this programmatically, but not natively.

quote:
When I do a mail merge, is there any way to have it merge the same list to more than one document, or do I have to just do the merge a second time on the same highlighted list?

You'd have to repeat the merge, unless you used a macro to trigger the merge.

Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :

1) Do like Tom said, or create a completely separate template from the normal dot template (annoying, but it usually works).

2) Not an ability I know of.

3) Only unless you do it manually for each one.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

Rats on 2 & 3. But it's good to know that I can't do it and not waste time trying to figure out how. [Smile]

I have tried to create a template before, and I didn't know enough about what I was doing for it to be successful. And I don't know anything about INSERTTEXT or INSERTFILE. Can you link me to online references or recommend a book or whatever?

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Creating a template won't help you, because updating a template doesn't update a file based on that template.

What you need to do is create a file that contains only the text you want to insert into the header, and then use a Word mergefield in your destination document that inserts the first file into a given location in that destination document.

In 2003, the syntax for that is:
{INCLUDETEXT "C:\\filename.doc" \* MERGEFORMAT}

Note that the brackets here are the "special" mergefield brackets, and the slashes in the file path are escaped out through doubling (so that you use two slashes everywhere they'd occur in the path). MERGEFORMAT is an optional flag, but it'll make your life easier to include it.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

I think I understand what you are telling me to do. I will try it (probably not today, which is going to be nuts) and see if I can get it to work. Then I'll be back to ask for help again, most likely. [Wink]

Thanks.

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

quote:
1) How do I link the letterhead (as a header) of each saved form letter to one primary template, so that when I make changes to it, they are reflected on all my form letters?

You probably would have been better off having made a template with the letterhead header; and then creating all of your form letters using that custom template. But if the letters are already created, its a little too late to try that now.

Farmgirl