View Single Post
  #5   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
Peter Jamieson Peter Jamieson is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,582
Default Addressing letters when two people with different last nameslive at same address

Let's suppose that you always have a first person, that you have the
following fields for the first person

Title
First_Name
Surname

and the following fields for the second person:

M_2nd_Title
M_2nd_Forename
M_2nd_Surname

and you can assume that a blank M_2nd_Surname
a. implies there is no second person
b. implies that M_2nd_Forename and M_2nd_Title are also blank

Then starting from this specification:

If both names have title information available, then use Dear Mr. Jones
and Ms. Smith
If there is only one person, and we know their title, it should just
say Dear Mr. Jones
In all other cases, it should say Dear Sir/Madam


you could use a number of different approaches, e.g.

e.g.

Dear {
IF { MERGEFIELD Title } ""
"{ IF { MERGEFIELD M_2nd_Title } ""
"{ MERGEFIELD Title } { MERGEFIELD Surname
} and { MERGEFIELD M_2nd_Title } { MERGEFIELD M_2nd_Surname } }"
"{ IF { MERGEFIELD M_2nd_Surname } = ""
"{ MERGEFIELD Title } { MERGEFIELD Surname }"
"Sir/Madam"
}"
"
"Sir/Madam" }

As for the /address/, I would go along with Graham, but there is a
always a problem with shared addresses that even people with the same
surname are not necessarily in the way that, for example, "Mr and Mrs
Smith" would traditionally imply on the envelope, and might not be
related at all. But perhaps the way your data is collected and entered
takes care of that kind of difficulty.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 30/03/2010 11:23, madrayakin wrote:
Is anyone able to help me please? I'm sorry if I have not explained
myself very well

Naomi

madrayakin;463011 Wrote:
I'm using Word 2003 and trying to set up a letter using mail merge. I
am having trouble making it work when I need to send the letter to two
people with different surnames living at the same address. I have
managed to set up the address line of the document as follows:

{ MERGEFIELD Title \f " " }{ MERGEFIELD First_name \f " " }{ MERGEFIELD
"Surname" \f " " }{ IF { MERGEFIELD M_2nd_Surname} """& " "" }{
MERGEFIELD "M_2nd_Forename" \f " " }{ MERGEFIELD "M_2nd_Surname" \f " "
}

However, I am having difficulty with the greeting line of the document,
I want it to be able to figure out the following:

If both names have title information available, then use Dear Mr. Jones
and Ms. Smith
If there is only one person, and we know their title, it should just
say Dear Mr. Jones
In all other cases, it should say Dear Sir/Madam

Please can anyone help?

Many thanks,
Naomi