Form letters or another way?

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I need to know the best way to do this project I have. It is even
complicated to explain. I have one document in word. I need to enter
information in that document for 300+ different substations. The information
would be individualized for each substation. In other words if I need info
for substation #1, I would pull that info into the document. If I need info
for substation #14, I would pull that info into the documnet. Some of this
information will change from time to time and some will remain the same.
What is the best way to do this?
 
Cindy said:
I need to know the best way to do this project I have. It is even
complicated to explain. I have one document in word. I need to enter
information in that document for 300+ different substations. The
information would be individualized for each substation. In other
words if I need info for substation #1, I would pull that info into
the document. If I need info for substation #14, I would pull that
info into the documnet. Some of this information will change from
time to time and some will remain the same. What is the best way to
do this?
Click to expand...

Hi Cindy,

The feature you're looking for is "mail merge". See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MailMerge/CreateAMailMerge.htm for a tutorial.
 
It sounds like you need Mail Merge.

Create your main document with the information that will be same for
each substation and create a data source for the data that will change
in each document.

In your data source setup fields/records for each substation and then
in your main document you insert merge fields for those areas you need
to 'pull in' the individual substation data.

To start the mail merge process go to Tools/Mail Merge or
Tools/Letters and Mailings/Mail Merge depending on the version of Word
you are using.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
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MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
Jay, Thanks for the information. I will look at the document. I think my
problem with mailmerge is the the database source. I can't figure out a way
to change the fields for one. Some of my fields will be paragraphs others
will be addresses or statments. Can I do this in mail merge?
 
Beth,

That is the way I have been trying to do this. However when I get to the
data source I don't see a way of changing my field descriptions. I don't need
the typical, name, address, phone etc. I need around 100 fields and some of
the fields will be paragraphs not just 2-3 words. Can this be done?
 
Hmmmm. If I can add my two penn'orth to this.

You don't need 100 fields, you need 1 field containing the substation names
and a collection of files that represent the texts you are going to insert.
If you name the texts according to the substation names, you can easily
change any content and re-run the merge as required. e.g.
You have a substation 1 so you name the texts according to that eg
1text1.doc 1text2.doc 1text3.doc
for substation 300 you name the texts 300text1.doc 300text2.doc 300text3.doc
etc

In the place in the merge document where you wish to insert the text1 you
use an includetext field
eg {INCLUDETEXT "C:\\pathname\\{Mergefield substationnumber}text1.doc"}

When the document is merged the appropriate text is inserted.

You could do much the same with autotexts instead of files if preferred.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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Man, I knew this would be complicated.. I am a beginner here. I told the
engineer that gave me this project- "Couldn't you have given me a simple
first project?" ha
I am trying to figure this out. Thanks for your input
 
Instead of trying to use the form that Word provides for creating a data
source, just set it up as a table in Word (or Excel). The first row of the
table (column headings) provides the mail merge field names. You can put
anything you like in the other cells. As Graham suggested, though,
IncludeText or AutoText fields might be a convenient way to incorporate the
larger text bits.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Suzzanne

Thanks for the suggestion. Someone else suggested the table format too. As
I said I am a fairly new user. When I enter mail merge and new document, and
then to data source. Where or how to I tell it to look for a table? Do I need
to have enter my table into a different document and save it. And then tell
it to open the table. How does Word know that those are my fields?
 
You might want to look at the
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MailMerge/CreateADataSource.htm, but the short
answer is yes, create the data source as a separate document and then tell
Word to use that as your data source. Word will assume that the first row of
the table contains the merge field names. In older versions of Word, the
Mail Merge Toolbar has a button for View Source or something of the sort
that takes you directly to the table. Also, if you're using Word 2002 or
2003, you don't have to use the Mail Merge Wizard. See
http://home.earthlink.net/~wordfaqs/ExpressMailMerges.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Okay, I have followed all the directions from all the pages that everyone has
sent me and I still can't get it to work. I did a table. with my fields in
column one and my information in column 2. When I look for the fields to
enter into my document, it doesn't show but one filed. If you can send me an
email address I would be happy to forward what I have so that you can tell me
what I am doing wrong
 
Graham, you described an interesting approach. If one followed that
tack, would it really be necessary to do a merge? Couldn't the user
instead have an ASK field that asked which substation, and then
populated the INCLUDETEXT fields with the response?

I myself have never figured out how to do what I've just described,
though I have the need. So, if it is an appropriate way to manage
the current task, perhaps you could provide some detail and I could
finally get my similar situation to work.
 
You put the field names in the first *row* of the table, not the first
column. Set up the table like this:

First Name Last Name Address1 Address2 Etc.
Smith John 123 Any Street Anytown, USA Etc.
Jones Etc.

I know you're not using addresses, but this is still the general idea.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Yes, you could do that, but it wouldn't help much if you wanted to print out
the information for all 300 substations.
You would use the ASK field to call for the number then use {INCLUDETEXT
"C:\\path\\{REF Bookmarkname}text1.doc""} etc.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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