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Carriage Return in Word for a Mail Merge Field



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 15th, 2004, 08:44 PM
BuzzMaster
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Default Carriage Return in Word for a Mail Merge Field

I have a web application built in Cold Fusion that generates a listing of books for each student in the school. The school wants to generate a mailing through Word for these book lists. The number of books varies for each student. I currently determine the student with the most number of books and then dynamically generate fields for book titles, equalling this total number. I then generate a record for each student where the titles are loaded sequentially in each field until there are no more titles, and then I load a blank character into each subsequant field up to the max number of titles.

This data is then saved a a .txt file to use as my data source for the mail merge. Each field is double quoted and separated by commas.

I then have to create a Word template with the right number of fields to merge into.

What I would like to do is load each title into a list under 1 field name. I then want the field to insert the list into the mail merge document. I want to issue a CR LF after each title. What needs to be a part of the text in the field supplying all of the Titles which causes a carriage return after each title.

I can generate this text from cold fusion as I build the data, if only I new what the appropriate characters should be.

  #2  
Old July 16th, 2004, 06:34 AM
Graham Mayor
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Default Carriage Return in Word for a Mail Merge Field

If I have understood correctly, you are going to end up with a record for
each student, some of which will have a number of empty title fields and you
don't want to end up with a load of blank lines in the merge?

This is fairly straightforward to achieve in the merge document by using a
series of conditional fields to place the title and line feed only when
there is content. All the conditional fields are placed on the same line eg

{IF {Mergefield Title1} "" "{Mergefield Title1}
"}{IF {Mergefield Title2} "" "{Mergefield Title2}
"}{IF {Mergefield Title3} "" "{Mergefield Title3}
"}etc


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




BuzzMaster wrote:
I have a web application built in Cold Fusion that generates a
listing of books for each student in the school. The school wants to
generate a mailing through Word for these book lists. The number of
books varies for each student. I currently determine the student
with the most number of books and then dynamically generate fields
for book titles, equalling this total number. I then generate a
record for each student where the titles are loaded sequentially in
each field until there are no more titles, and then I load a blank
character into each subsequant field up to the max number of titles.

This data is then saved a a .txt file to use as my data source for
the mail merge. Each field is double quoted and separated by commas.

I then have to create a Word template with the right number of fields
to merge into.

What I would like to do is load each title into a list under 1 field
name. I then want the field to insert the list into the mail merge
document. I want to issue a CR LF after each title. What needs to be
a part of the text in the field supplying all of the Titles which
causes a carriage return after each title.

I can generate this text from cold fusion as I build the data, if
only I new what the appropriate characters should be.



  #3  
Old July 16th, 2004, 10:27 AM
BuzzMaster
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Carriage Return in Word for a Mail Merge Field

Thank you for your response - however, I think you misunderstood - I would like to have all of the titles inserted as a single merge field, not as individual fields. This would let me create a single template which would always work, regardless of the number of titles. I need to include the appropriate characters between the titles in my text file so that a carriage return is generated in the word document between each title. I just don't know what that text is that Word would intewrpret and then generate the carriage return.

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

If I have understood correctly, you are going to end up with a record for
each student, some of which will have a number of empty title fields and you
don't want to end up with a load of blank lines in the merge?

This is fairly straightforward to achieve in the merge document by using a
series of conditional fields to place the title and line feed only when
there is content. All the conditional fields are placed on the same line eg

{IF {Mergefield Title1} "" "{Mergefield Title1}
"}{IF {Mergefield Title2} "" "{Mergefield Title2}
"}{IF {Mergefield Title3} "" "{Mergefield Title3}
"}etc


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




BuzzMaster wrote:
I have a web application built in Cold Fusion that generates a
listing of books for each student in the school. The school wants to
generate a mailing through Word for these book lists. The number of
books varies for each student. I currently determine the student
with the most number of books and then dynamically generate fields
for book titles, equalling this total number. I then generate a
record for each student where the titles are loaded sequentially in
each field until there are no more titles, and then I load a blank
character into each subsequant field up to the max number of titles.

This data is then saved a a .txt file to use as my data source for
the mail merge. Each field is double quoted and separated by commas.

I then have to create a Word template with the right number of fields
to merge into.

What I would like to do is load each title into a list under 1 field
name. I then want the field to insert the list into the mail merge
document. I want to issue a CR LF after each title. What needs to be
a part of the text in the field supplying all of the Titles which
causes a carriage return after each title.

I can generate this text from cold fusion as I build the data, if
only I new what the appropriate characters should be.




  #4  
Old July 16th, 2004, 02:45 PM
Graham Mayor
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Carriage Return in Word for a Mail Merge Field

I don't believe this is possible, though the method I suggested could be a
workaround. Alternatively you could insert some unique temporary string eg
@@@@ then merge to a new document and replace @@@@ with ^p.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




BuzzMaster wrote:
Thank you for your response - however, I think you misunderstood - I
would like to have all of the titles inserted as a single merge
field, not as individual fields. This would let me create a single
template which would always work, regardless of the number of titles.
I need to include the appropriate characters between the titles in my
text file so that a carriage return is generated in the word document
between each title. I just don't know what that text is that Word
would intewrpret and then generate the carriage return.

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

If I have understood correctly, you are going to end up with a
record for
each student, some of which will have a number of empty title fields
and you
don't want to end up with a load of blank lines in the merge?

This is fairly straightforward to achieve in the merge document by
using a
series of conditional fields to place the title and line feed only
when
there is content. All the conditional fields are placed on the same
line eg

{IF {Mergefield Title1} "" "{Mergefield Title1}
"}{IF {Mergefield Title2} "" "{Mergefield Title2}
"}{IF {Mergefield Title3} "" "{Mergefield Title3}
"}etc


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org




BuzzMaster wrote:
I have a web application built in Cold Fusion that generates a
listing of books for each student in the school. The school wants
to
generate a mailing through Word for these book lists. The number of
books varies for each student. I currently determine the student
with the most number of books and then dynamically generate fields
for book titles, equalling this total number. I then generate a
record for each student where the titles are loaded sequentially in
each field until there are no more titles, and then I load a blank
character into each subsequant field up to the max number of titles.

This data is then saved a a .txt file to use as my data source for
the mail merge. Each field is double quoted and separated by
commas.

I then have to create a Word template with the right number of
fields
to merge into.

What I would like to do is load each title into a list under 1 field
name. I then want the field to insert the list into the mail merge
document. I want to issue a CR LF after each title. What needs to
be
a part of the text in the field supplying all of the Titles which
causes a carriage return after each title.

I can generate this text from cold fusion as I build the data, if
only I new what the appropriate characters should be.



  #5  
Old July 21st, 2004, 08:44 PM
David Harper
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Posts: n/a
Default Carriage Return in Word for a Mail Merge Field

This is similar to what I do in an application where I use OLE Automation to
control the Mail-Merge process. One field may have many "Lines". In the
Data Source they look like this:

"Field1", "Field2", "Field3"
"Sam Jones", "Book1CRBook2CRBook3CRBook4", "ID"

After I do the merge I then do a find and replace, replacing all CR with
^p.

- David Harper


 




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