I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. We're currently
using Word 2002 but will be upgrading to Word 2003 this summer. Currently,
the users are accomplishing this task in WordPerfect 7, but that will be
eliminated shortly. The task is as follows: a txt file is created which is
then merged with a variety of different letters to be sent to the public.

The text file has the following set-up:
first line is a number which identifies a specific letter (1, 2, 3, 4 etc.)
second line is a name
third line is a street address
fourth line is a city, state and zip code

What I'm trying to do is to create a merge which will open the appropriate
letter (letter 1, letter 2, etc.), fill in the information and then put all
these letters in one new document. I know a little Visual Basic, but not
enough yet to accomplish this. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Although you might just about be able to perform the merge you want with no
VBA at all, there are three main areas in which you are likely to have
problems
1. the attempt to process multiple letter types in a single merge, or
indeed in a single output document, is probably worth it in Word, except
perhaps in the case where all the letters have the same layout and there are
no headers/footers
2. using a single-column data source without a header causes a number of
problems (e.g., Word 2003 will always prompt for delimiter details if you
only have a single column, and record selection/filtering is harder
3. combining the two requires you to use INCLUDETEXT, and because you
cannot put { NEXT } fields inside other fields, you have to resort to using
SET fields.

In my view, you should at least transform the data before attempting a
merge, and you should probably do a separate merge for each letter type.

As a very simple example of one way that you might transform your data,
here's a bit of VBA. I'm assuming that all your data is in a single file,
not one file per address, that there are exactly 4 lines per record, and no
header line.

Sub ReformatFile()

' a very simple sample!
' this sample sub assumes we have a text file called mydata.txt
' and we want to turn each group of four lines into
' one 4-column tab-delimited record, all headed up
' by a specific header record. There are lots of assumptions, e.g.
' that input line recognises the line end used in the file,
' that there are no tabs (so we do not need to quote the
' data), there is an exact multiple of 4 lines (so we do
' not run out of data), the strings are not too long to be
' processed and so on.

' I use the old BASIC file I/O stuff rather than the newer
' filestram objects. No particular reason.

Dim sLine1 As String
Dim sLine2 As String
Dim sLine3 As String
Dim sLine4 As String
On Error GoTo problem
' You really need to make sure that nothing has these files open
' at this point - e.g. if this code is in your mail merge main
' document, you should disconnect the data source
Open "c:\w\singlecolumndata\mydata.txt" For Input As #1
Open "c:\w\singlecolumndata\mydata4.txt" For Output As #2
Print #2, "LetterNumber" & _
vbTab & "Name" & _
vbTab & "Street" & _
vbTab & "CityStateZIP"
While Not EOF(1)
Line Input #1, sLine1
Line Input #1, sLine2
Line Input #1, sLine3
Line Input #1, sLine4
Print #2, sLine1 & _
vbTab & sLine2 & _
vbTab & sLine3 & _
vbTab & sLine4
Wend
Close #2
Close #1
Exit Sub

problem:
MsgBox "Error number " & _
Err.Number & _
", " & Err.Description & _
" occurred when transforming the data source"
Err.Clear
On Error Resume Next
Close #2
Close #1

End Sub

If you have one mail merge letter per letter number, you can filter the data
using the standard Word mailmerge features.

To perform the merge with no VBA, you could try the following, but I think
you will probably be wasting your time. I'm making the same assumptions
about the source data as above, and assuming that your letters are similar
with no headers/footer. In that case, you could proceed as follows:
a. if the data file does not have a column header (one line with a column
name in it, say "mydata", then you would either have to add that row, or
create a separate plain text HeaderSource file containing

mydata

b. If you need a HeaderSource file, you will need to define a Header source
in your mail merge main document. In Word 2002/2003 you either have to do
that by dragging the old MailMergeHelper out of Tools|Customize|Category All
Commands and using the second button down to define the data source, or
using VBA.
c. Connect to the data source in the usual way.
d. You will need one .doc for each letter, named so that you can construct
the pathname of the .doc from the letter number in the data. Let's suppose
you have letters in c:\myletters called myletter1.doc, myletter2.doc etc.
e. put the following fields in your main document. All the {} need to be
the field code braces you can insert using ctrl-F9

{ SET LetterNumber { MERGEFIELD mydata } }{ NEXT }{ SET Name { MERGEFIELD
mydata } }{ NEXT }{ SET Street { MERGEFIELD mydata } }{ NEXT }{ SET
CityStateZIP { MERGEFIELD mydata } }{ INCLUDETEXT
"c:\\myletters\\myletter{ LetterNumber }.doc" }
f. In each letter, use the field codes

{ Name }
{ Street }
{ CityStateZIP }

to insert the relevant texts
g. merge to an output document
h. immediately select the whole output document (e.g. using ctrl-A) and use
ctrl-shift-F9 to "unlink" all the field codes.

This solution can be extended in a number of ways, e.g. you might be able to
get different headers/footers by using additional INCLUDETEXT fields in your
mail merge main document's header/footer areas. But it really seems very
shaky to me.

Peter Jamieson
"abs" wrote in message
...
I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. We're currently
using Word 2002 but will be upgrading to Word 2003 this summer.
Currently,
the users are accomplishing this task in WordPerfect 7, but that will be
eliminated shortly. The task is as follows: a txt file is created which
is
then merged with a variety of different letters to be sent to the public.

The text file has the following set-up:
first line is a number which identifies a specific letter (1, 2, 3, 4
etc.)
second line is a name
third line is a street address
fourth line is a city, state and zip code

What I'm trying to do is to create a merge which will open the appropriate
letter (letter 1, letter 2, etc.), fill in the information and then put
all
these letters in one new document. I know a little Visual Basic, but not
enough yet to accomplish this. Can someone point me in the right
direction?