Mail merge advice

[Guest]

I was asked to do a mail merge with 3 large word files which have names,
addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. They are not in tables and I
want to export names and addresses only into Excel. I could sure use any
ideas you might have. So far I've converted the word file to a text doc and
I've been deleting the unwanted info by hand. I've tried to use wildcards in
find and replace to remove phone numbers but so far no luck. Thank you.

T

 

[Guest]

There's no need to remove the unwanted information. If you don't have a
field/placeholder eg email address then it just won't appear in the merged
documents. Have you tried the command on the table menu convert text to table?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply Rea.

Yes I did try that but there is really no format to the original doc. Names
and titles on one line, address and sometimes ph # pn the 2nd line and email
on the next.
Do I have to put placeholders after each subset. ie. name, address, state,
zip?

 

[Guest]

When you get the data into Excel or a Word table, you need to have a field
title for each piece of data, eg Title, Name, Address. This needs to be the
first row.

 

[Guest]

Yes, you're right but I can't even get that far. It's asking me for
placeholders or breaks. Do I have to go throough the whole doc and put semi
colons after each break? There are tons of addresses.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Converting a doc file that doesn't have any structure to a data file that
can be used for Word is going to be time consuming.
The basic process is covered at
http://www.gmayor.com/convert_labels_into_mail_merge.htm but if your
addresses are random in layout you have a lot of work on your hands to make
it so.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[Guest]

Thanks for you help Graham and you're right, I do have a lot of work on my
hands.