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Marge Marge is offline
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Posts: 9
Default Mail Merge Previews Wrong

I DO appreciate the volunteerism - these forums are of as much or MORE use
than any of the Support/Help features I have found in M/Soft itself! I ALWAYS
get a resolution when I come here and ask a question - even if it is a "work
around" - it WORKS!

Thank you both for your replies! I will try and retrain my staff to use the
toolbar rather than the wizard - it will take a little re-educating, but
sounds worth it!

Thank you again!

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

So - when you are in the "Preview Your Labels" window it isn't "really" a
preview - it's a semi-preview


Yes, at best, it's a preview based on the idea that that the merge starts
with the record currently selected. And even that is not the whole truth.

but it freaked out my
user because she only had a limited number of these kind of expensive
nametags and she/we and it originally appeared that it was going to print
all
of these duplicates.


It sounds like she saved someone a lot of money.

Here, I use a number of different printers/stationery types/label layouts.
They are mostly based on A4-sized paper, and what I usually try to do is
test my output on ordinary A4 paper or cheap transparency stationery and
manually align the paper with the stationery I really want to print on. It
isn't always enough, because for example, a printer driver may assume that a
certain type of paper is only available in A5 size.

Frankly, I wish things were easier than that and I didn't have to waste any
paper at all, but I just don't think the current level of industry
standardisation is good enough to fix the problem for us. FWIW when I want
to print individual labels, I tend to use a Dymo labelmaker that can print
one-off labels, and avoid Word merge altogether. But that's probably not
helpful if you are producing large numbers of labels.

Nor do I know whether or not any initiatives exist to try to improve things.
Just my 2c-worth - if you want to make a suggestion to Microsoft, bear in
mind that these groups are typically "staffed" by volunteers who do not work
for Microsoft - you can always email but there is no
guarantee that anyone will, or can, change anything.

Peter Jamieson


"Marge" wrote in message
...
So - when you are in the "Preview Your Labels" window it isn't "really" a
preview - it's a semi-preview and in this case it appears
wrong...therefore
you just have to "trust" and hit the PRINT choice on the "Complete the
merge"
step and assume it is going to be okay if you don't want to see the
completed
document by selecting the "Edit individual labels..." . I've just always
been
one to go ahead and print and not do the extra step, but it freaked out my
user because she only had a limited number of these kind of expensive
nametags and she/we and it originally appeared that it was going to print
all
of these duplicates.

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Nothing to figure! In the first method that you describe, you have not
actually executed the merge.

--
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

"Marge" wrote in message
...
I had an Avery Label Template that I was using in Word to create Name
Tab
Labels (1 column, 2 to a page - small label sheets). When I merged from
Excel
(using Graham's excellent directions with the Next Record field)
and
got
to the "Preview Your Labels" point, the labels appeard wrong in that
the
first record was on label #1, the second record was on Label #2, and
then
the
second record showed again on Label #3, what was record number three
showed
on Label #4, record number three showed again on Label #5, record
number
four
showed on Label #6, etc., etc., with the records on the second label of
each
page repeating on the first label of the next page throughout the
document
as
I used the Next Recipient button to preview. When I went on to the
"complete
the Merge" step and used the "Print" feature, they continued to print
wrong,
with the repeated labels for each new sheet.

BUT - when I used the Edit the "Edit individual labels..." tool and
previewed the labels in a completed Word document, they were correct
and
printed correctly. Go figure that one???