[JAnderson]

Ok, this is a somewhat complicated one, so bear with me:

I have a large document where each page is an "IF" statement followed by a
next-page section break. Let's pretend that I'm using the merge field
"Animal" as my condition:

{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "BEAR" "
Document relating to bears
More text, formatting of 0.5" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "ZEBRA" "
Document relating to zebras
More text, formatting of 1" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
BEGIN REGULAR 2-PAGE DOCUMENT
More text, 1.2" margins
More text
End of document

Thus, if the condition "Bear" is met, then a document relating to bears will
become part of my document, otherwise, nothing happens (the false condition
is ""). Likewise, if "Zebra" is the value of the field, then a document
about zebras appears. Under any condition, however, my "regular" document is
always part of the merge (say, a fact sheet about zoo animals).

This method, while potentially inelegant, works for our specific needs, and
works without any problems. However, there becomes a point where inserting
one more "IF" statement will "break" the whole document.

Say I realize that I need to add yet another document about Lions, so I
follow the formatting above and enter this Lion IF statement right after the
zebra IF statement. For some reason, headers, footers and margins (section
break qualities) will not be correct for whatever document I merge, and
sometimes the "next page" section breaks will reorient themselves as
"continuous", thus melding pages together.

I'm a bit stuck at this point, because I can't understand why, if a section
break is within an IF statement, it would later become functional even though
its condition is not met. Would it be more effective if, every time I added
a new IF statement, I re-built the whole document starting with "Bear", then
"Zebra", then "Lion", then "Regular document"? Is this just a lost cause?

(The reason I am insistent on doing it this way is because, on a grander
scale, I do not want to have hundreds of individual documents to use for
merging data; I would prefer to have one 'master' document.)

Thanks in advance,

[macropod[_2_]]

Hi JAnderson,

You'd probably get better results by creating a separate reference document for each scenario, then embedding your MERGEFIELD within
an INCLUDETEXT field pointing to the folder where those documents can be found.

For example, suppose your refrence documents are in the folder C:\My Documents\Animals and you have a series of files (eg Bear.doc,
Zebra.doc, etc) in that folder. In that case you could use an INCLUDETEXT field coded as:
{INCLUDETEXT "C:\\My Documents\\Animals\\{MERGEFIELD ANIMAL}.doc"}

Now, if you add a new 'Animal' to your database, all you need to do is to create a corresponding reference document for it in the
folder C:\My Documents\Animals.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"JAnderson" wrote in message news
Ok, this is a somewhat complicated one, so bear with me:

I have a large document where each page is an "IF" statement followed by a
next-page section break. Let's pretend that I'm using the merge field
"Animal" as my condition:

{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "BEAR" "
Document relating to bears
More text, formatting of 0.5" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "ZEBRA" "
Document relating to zebras
More text, formatting of 1" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
BEGIN REGULAR 2-PAGE DOCUMENT
More text, 1.2" margins
More text
End of document

Thus, if the condition "Bear" is met, then a document relating to bears will
become part of my document, otherwise, nothing happens (the false condition
is ""). Likewise, if "Zebra" is the value of the field, then a document
about zebras appears. Under any condition, however, my "regular" document is
always part of the merge (say, a fact sheet about zoo animals).

This method, while potentially inelegant, works for our specific needs, and
works without any problems. However, there becomes a point where inserting
one more "IF" statement will "break" the whole document.

Say I realize that I need to add yet another document about Lions, so I
follow the formatting above and enter this Lion IF statement right after the
zebra IF statement. For some reason, headers, footers and margins (section
break qualities) will not be correct for whatever document I merge, and
sometimes the "next page" section breaks will reorient themselves as
"continuous", thus melding pages together.

I'm a bit stuck at this point, because I can't understand why, if a section
break is within an IF statement, it would later become functional even though
its condition is not met. Would it be more effective if, every time I added
a new IF statement, I re-built the whole document starting with "Bear", then
"Zebra", then "Lion", then "Regular document"? Is this just a lost cause?

(The reason I am insistent on doing it this way is because, on a grander
scale, I do not want to have hundreds of individual documents to use for
merging data; I would prefer to have one 'master' document.)

Thanks in advance,

[JAnderson]

Hmm... So could I still use conditional statements with INCLUDETEXT? If my
database record is 'zebra', I only want my zebra document to show.

Also, would includetext retain formatting? It's important that I keep
margins, footers, and text formatting in a certain way.

Lastly, can INCLUDETEXT also accommodate mergefields? For example, inside
my zebra document are mergefields like 'zoo name' 'zoo address' 'zoo city',
etc., which merge from my database. This works inside IF statements, but I
wonder if it would with INCLUDETEXT...

Thanks,

"macropod" wrote:

Hi JAnderson,

You'd probably get better results by creating a separate reference document for each scenario, then embedding your MERGEFIELD within
an INCLUDETEXT field pointing to the folder where those documents can be found.

For example, suppose your refrence documents are in the folder C:\My Documents\Animals and you have a series of files (eg Bear.doc,
Zebra.doc, etc) in that folder. In that case you could use an INCLUDETEXT field coded as:
{INCLUDETEXT "C:\\My Documents\\Animals\\{MERGEFIELD ANIMAL}.doc"}

Now, if you add a new 'Animal' to your database, all you need to do is to create a corresponding reference document for it in the
folder C:\My Documents\Animals.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"JAnderson" wrote in message news
Ok, this is a somewhat complicated one, so bear with me:

I have a large document where each page is an "IF" statement followed by a
next-page section break. Let's pretend that I'm using the merge field
"Animal" as my condition:

{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "BEAR" "
Document relating to bears
More text, formatting of 0.5" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "ZEBRA" "
Document relating to zebras
More text, formatting of 1" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
BEGIN REGULAR 2-PAGE DOCUMENT
More text, 1.2" margins
More text
End of document

Thus, if the condition "Bear" is met, then a document relating to bears will
become part of my document, otherwise, nothing happens (the false condition
is ""). Likewise, if "Zebra" is the value of the field, then a document
about zebras appears. Under any condition, however, my "regular" document is
always part of the merge (say, a fact sheet about zoo animals).

This method, while potentially inelegant, works for our specific needs, and
works without any problems. However, there becomes a point where inserting
one more "IF" statement will "break" the whole document.

Say I realize that I need to add yet another document about Lions, so I
follow the formatting above and enter this Lion IF statement right after the
zebra IF statement. For some reason, headers, footers and margins (section
break qualities) will not be correct for whatever document I merge, and
sometimes the "next page" section breaks will reorient themselves as
"continuous", thus melding pages together.

I'm a bit stuck at this point, because I can't understand why, if a section
break is within an IF statement, it would later become functional even though
its condition is not met. Would it be more effective if, every time I added
a new IF statement, I re-built the whole document starting with "Bear", then
"Zebra", then "Lion", then "Regular document"? Is this just a lost cause?

(The reason I am insistent on doing it this way is because, on a grander
scale, I do not want to have hundreds of individual documents to use for
merging data; I would prefer to have one 'master' document.)

Thanks in advance,

[Graham Mayor]

The point of the exercise was that you don't need the conditional
statements. The Includetext field inserts the appropriate document. And yes
you can put mergefields in the included documents and they will work
provided they match the fields in your data source.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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



JAnderson wrote:
Hmm... So could I still use conditional statements with INCLUDETEXT?
If my database record is 'zebra', I only want my zebra document to
show.

Also, would includetext retain formatting? It's important that I keep
margins, footers, and text formatting in a certain way.

Lastly, can INCLUDETEXT also accommodate mergefields? For example,
inside my zebra document are mergefields like 'zoo name' 'zoo
address' 'zoo city', etc., which merge from my database. This works
inside IF statements, but I wonder if it would with INCLUDETEXT...

Thanks,

"macropod" wrote:

Hi JAnderson,

You'd probably get better results by creating a separate reference
document for each scenario, then embedding your MERGEFIELD within an
INCLUDETEXT field pointing to the folder where those documents can
be found.

For example, suppose your refrence documents are in the folder C:\My
Documents\Animals and you have a series of files (eg Bear.doc,
Zebra.doc, etc) in that folder. In that case you could use an
INCLUDETEXT field coded as: {INCLUDETEXT "C:\\My
Documents\\Animals\\{MERGEFIELD ANIMAL}.doc"}

Now, if you add a new 'Animal' to your database, all you need to do
is to create a corresponding reference document for it in the folder
C:\My Documents\Animals.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"JAnderson" wrote in message
news
Ok, this is a somewhat complicated one, so bear with me:

I have a large document where each page is an "IF" statement
followed by a next-page section break. Let's pretend that I'm
using the merge field "Animal" as my condition:

{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "BEAR" "
Document relating to bears
More text, formatting of 0.5" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "ZEBRA" "
Document relating to zebras
More text, formatting of 1" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
BEGIN REGULAR 2-PAGE DOCUMENT
More text, 1.2" margins
More text
End of document

Thus, if the condition "Bear" is met, then a document relating to
bears will become part of my document, otherwise, nothing happens
(the false condition is ""). Likewise, if "Zebra" is the value of
the field, then a document about zebras appears. Under any
condition, however, my "regular" document is always part of the
merge (say, a fact sheet about zoo animals).

This method, while potentially inelegant, works for our specific
needs, and works without any problems. However, there becomes a
point where inserting one more "IF" statement will "break" the
whole document.

Say I realize that I need to add yet another document about Lions,
so I follow the formatting above and enter this Lion IF statement
right after the zebra IF statement. For some reason, headers,
footers and margins (section break qualities) will not be correct
for whatever document I merge, and sometimes the "next page"
section breaks will reorient themselves as "continuous", thus
melding pages together.

I'm a bit stuck at this point, because I can't understand why, if a
section break is within an IF statement, it would later become
functional even though its condition is not met. Would it be more
effective if, every time I added a new IF statement, I re-built the
whole document starting with "Bear", then "Zebra", then "Lion",
then "Regular document"? Is this just a lost cause?

(The reason I am insistent on doing it this way is because, on a
grander scale, I do not want to have hundreds of individual
documents to use for merging data; I would prefer to have one
'master' document.)

Thanks in advance,

[JAnderson]

Ah, that makes sense, thank you. It looks like the last of my problems is
formatting.

Each of my documents has different page setup dimensions (margins,
header/footer, etc.), by they seem to take on that of the main "host"
document, rather than keeping their original formatting. I can't think of a
way around this, but everything else is looking pretty good.

Any ideas? Thanks as always,


"Graham Mayor" wrote:

The point of the exercise was that you don't need the conditional
statements. The Includetext field inserts the appropriate document. And yes
you can put mergefields in the included documents and they will work
provided they match the fields in your data source.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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



JAnderson wrote:
Hmm... So could I still use conditional statements with INCLUDETEXT?
If my database record is 'zebra', I only want my zebra document to
show.

Also, would includetext retain formatting? It's important that I keep
margins, footers, and text formatting in a certain way.

Lastly, can INCLUDETEXT also accommodate mergefields? For example,
inside my zebra document are mergefields like 'zoo name' 'zoo
address' 'zoo city', etc., which merge from my database. This works
inside IF statements, but I wonder if it would with INCLUDETEXT...

Thanks,

"macropod" wrote:

Hi JAnderson,

You'd probably get better results by creating a separate reference
document for each scenario, then embedding your MERGEFIELD within an
INCLUDETEXT field pointing to the folder where those documents can
be found.

For example, suppose your refrence documents are in the folder C:\My
Documents\Animals and you have a series of files (eg Bear.doc,
Zebra.doc, etc) in that folder. In that case you could use an
INCLUDETEXT field coded as: {INCLUDETEXT "C:\\My
Documents\\Animals\\{MERGEFIELD ANIMAL}.doc"}

Now, if you add a new 'Animal' to your database, all you need to do
is to create a corresponding reference document for it in the folder
C:\My Documents\Animals.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"JAnderson" wrote in message
news Ok, this is a somewhat complicated one, so bear with me:

I have a large document where each page is an "IF" statement
followed by a next-page section break. Let's pretend that I'm
using the merge field "Animal" as my condition:

{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "BEAR" "
Document relating to bears
More text, formatting of 0.5" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "ZEBRA" "
Document relating to zebras
More text, formatting of 1" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
BEGIN REGULAR 2-PAGE DOCUMENT
More text, 1.2" margins
More text
End of document

Thus, if the condition "Bear" is met, then a document relating to
bears will become part of my document, otherwise, nothing happens
(the false condition is ""). Likewise, if "Zebra" is the value of
the field, then a document about zebras appears. Under any
condition, however, my "regular" document is always part of the
merge (say, a fact sheet about zoo animals).

This method, while potentially inelegant, works for our specific
needs, and works without any problems. However, there becomes a
point where inserting one more "IF" statement will "break" the
whole document.

Say I realize that I need to add yet another document about Lions,
so I follow the formatting above and enter this Lion IF statement
right after the zebra IF statement. For some reason, headers,
footers and margins (section break qualities) will not be correct
for whatever document I merge, and sometimes the "next page"
section breaks will reorient themselves as "continuous", thus
melding pages together.

I'm a bit stuck at this point, because I can't understand why, if a
section break is within an IF statement, it would later become
functional even though its condition is not met. Would it be more
effective if, every time I added a new IF statement, I re-built the
whole document starting with "Bear", then "Zebra", then "Lion",
then "Regular document"? Is this just a lost cause?

(The reason I am insistent on doing it this way is because, on a
grander scale, I do not want to have hundreds of individual
documents to use for merging data; I would prefer to have one
'master' document.)

Thanks in advance,

[macropod[_2_]]

Hi JAnderson,

I think you'll get the results you're after if you make the first character of each of the 'animal' documents a continuous Section
break and if you insert a continuous Section break in your mailmerge document after the mergefields also. Alternatively, if you want
each of the 'animal' documents to start on a new page, and the mailmerge document to resume on a new page after that, make the
section breaks 'next page'.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"JAnderson" wrote in message ...
Ah, that makes sense, thank you. It looks like the last of my problems is
formatting.

Each of my documents has different page setup dimensions (margins,
header/footer, etc.), by they seem to take on that of the main "host"
document, rather than keeping their original formatting. I can't think of a
way around this, but everything else is looking pretty good.

Any ideas? Thanks as always,


"Graham Mayor" wrote:

The point of the exercise was that you don't need the conditional
statements. The Includetext field inserts the appropriate document. And yes
you can put mergefields in the included documents and they will work
provided they match the fields in your data source.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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



JAnderson wrote:
Hmm... So could I still use conditional statements with INCLUDETEXT?
If my database record is 'zebra', I only want my zebra document to
show.

Also, would includetext retain formatting? It's important that I keep
margins, footers, and text formatting in a certain way.

Lastly, can INCLUDETEXT also accommodate mergefields? For example,
inside my zebra document are mergefields like 'zoo name' 'zoo
address' 'zoo city', etc., which merge from my database. This works
inside IF statements, but I wonder if it would with INCLUDETEXT...

Thanks,

"macropod" wrote:

Hi JAnderson,

You'd probably get better results by creating a separate reference
document for each scenario, then embedding your MERGEFIELD within an
INCLUDETEXT field pointing to the folder where those documents can
be found.

For example, suppose your refrence documents are in the folder C:\My
Documents\Animals and you have a series of files (eg Bear.doc,
Zebra.doc, etc) in that folder. In that case you could use an
INCLUDETEXT field coded as: {INCLUDETEXT "C:\\My
Documents\\Animals\\{MERGEFIELD ANIMAL}.doc"}

Now, if you add a new 'Animal' to your database, all you need to do
is to create a corresponding reference document for it in the folder
C:\My Documents\Animals.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"JAnderson" wrote in message
news Ok, this is a somewhat complicated one, so bear with me:

I have a large document where each page is an "IF" statement
followed by a next-page section break. Let's pretend that I'm
using the merge field "Animal" as my condition:

{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "BEAR" "
Document relating to bears
More text, formatting of 0.5" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
{IF{MERGEFIELD_ANIMAL}= "ZEBRA" "
Document relating to zebras
More text, formatting of 1" margins
More text
---section break (next page)---
" ""}
BEGIN REGULAR 2-PAGE DOCUMENT
More text, 1.2" margins
More text
End of document

Thus, if the condition "Bear" is met, then a document relating to
bears will become part of my document, otherwise, nothing happens
(the false condition is ""). Likewise, if "Zebra" is the value of
the field, then a document about zebras appears. Under any
condition, however, my "regular" document is always part of the
merge (say, a fact sheet about zoo animals).

This method, while potentially inelegant, works for our specific
needs, and works without any problems. However, there becomes a
point where inserting one more "IF" statement will "break" the
whole document.

Say I realize that I need to add yet another document about Lions,
so I follow the formatting above and enter this Lion IF statement
right after the zebra IF statement. For some reason, headers,
footers and margins (section break qualities) will not be correct
for whatever document I merge, and sometimes the "next page"
section breaks will reorient themselves as "continuous", thus
melding pages together.

I'm a bit stuck at this point, because I can't understand why, if a
section break is within an IF statement, it would later become
functional even though its condition is not met. Would it be more
effective if, every time I added a new IF statement, I re-built the
whole document starting with "Bear", then "Zebra", then "Lion",
then "Regular document"? Is this just a lost cause?

(The reason I am insistent on doing it this way is because, on a
grander scale, I do not want to have hundreds of individual
documents to use for merging data; I would prefer to have one
'master' document.)

Thanks in advance,

[Nicole Knapp]

I have read this entire thread with interest because I am trying to do
something similar, though more simple.

I have a document that uses a mail merge. I created the IF statement, with
the INSERTTEXT field and a next page break. But it will not open the file.

The file is buried pretty deep on a network server - but in the same folder
as the original document.
Both documents and folders leading to the documents have spaces in their
filenames. I tried replacing the spaces with underscores - but no luck.

This is my statement:
{IF {MERGEFIELD course} = €œCourse D€� "{INCLUDETEXT
"J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter_Page_3.doc"}" ""}

I am using the letter drive, not the network drive name.
Thanks
Nik

[Graham Mayor]

If the filename has spaces then the spaces must remain in the field.

Forget the merge for a moment.
Does {INCLUDETEXT "J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter_Page_3.doc"}
or
{INCLUDETEXT "J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter Page 3.doc"}
insert the document?

If it does not, check the path and filename are correct.

Once you have the insertion working, you can add the field to your merge
document

{IF {MERGEFIELD course} = "Course D" "{INCLUDETEXT
"J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter_Page_3.doc"}" ""}

Note that in the above which I have pasted from your question, you have
smart quotes around Course D. You need to change those for straight quotes
thus

{IF {MERGEFIELD course} = "Course D" "{INCLUDETEXT
"J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter_Page_3.doc"}" ""}

Your next page break needs to go inside the quotes around the Includetext
field

"HERE{INCLUDETEXT "J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter_Page_3.doc"}OR HERE" ""}

You may also need to merge to a new document and update the fields in that
new document in order to display the inserted document.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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





Nicole Knapp wrote:
I have read this entire thread with interest because I am trying to do
something similar, though more simple.

I have a document that uses a mail merge. I created the IF
statement, with the INSERTTEXT field and a next page break. But it
will not open the file.

The file is buried pretty deep on a network server - but in the same
folder as the original document.
Both documents and folders leading to the documents have spaces in
their filenames. I tried replacing the spaces with underscores - but
no luck.

This is my statement:
{IF {MERGEFIELD course} = "Course D" "{INCLUDETEXT
"J:\\Dept\\staff\\2009\\letter_Page_3.doc"}" ""}

I am using the letter drive, not the network drive name.
Thanks
Nik