Word 2003 is inherently more stable that 2000 which is as good a reason as
any to use it - and Outlook 2003 is much improved (and not backward
compatible if he has updated the data file to 2003 format).
Mailmerge is one of the bigger changes and some would say not for the
better, but it is possible to work around all the problems. You will find
several merge related pages on my web site - of which
http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm and
http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_lab...th_word_xp.htm are the most
immediately relevant.
Each page of a label merge or each record of a letter merge is a new
section. This does not stop the printing of an individual page or range of
pages. The sections can be addressed in the print pages dialog - fully
explained in Word help.
--
Graham Mayor - Word MVP
My web site
www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site
http://word.mvps.org
Matthew Lemin wrote:
Many thanks for your help with this. In the end the workaround was
more straightforward.
What was happening was there were margin and printer tray selection
problems in the (for want of a better word) prototype merge label
document. These were being reflected on every seperate section (page)
of the final "merge to new document" document. He tried to fix the
problems in the final document by applying the "page setup" options
to the whole of the document (all 250 sections) but Word would not
let him do this, it was only permitting him to change it one section
at a time.
By introducing section breaks he was unable to print a couple of
pages as a test because each page was effectively "page 1" of a new
section and therefore asking it to print, say, pages 1-4 would prompt
it to print the whole document because each page was effectively
"page 1" (doh...!)
He tried to fix this by deleting the section breaks between each
page, but Word would not let him do this either. I caught him just
as he was about to throw his laptop out of the window!
The solution was to fix the "page setup" margin and printer tray
options in the prototype document before he proceeded to merge to new
document. The fixed margins and printer trays were now reflected in
each section and the document printed as planned.
As an aside, before we found this fix, he had sent the problem 250
page document home by e-mail. He opened it up on his home computer
in Word 2000 and it printed fine with no problems. It also permitted
him to delete the section breaks and to make changes to all of the
sections at once. These are all problems that have been introduced
with Word 2003. Mail merge is the main reason he uses Outlook and
Word. As you can imagine, he is not very amused!
He is seriously considering scrapping Office 2003 and reverting to
Office 2000 as he has yet to find any advantages at all in the newer
version.
"Peter Jamieson" wrote:
What happens at print time if he clicks "Ignore" when the "Fix
margins" message appears?
The problem with the section breaks is likely to be that there is
nothing between the table on one page and the table on the next
except the section break. In that case, Word may not do the
replacement.
If you can add an extra paragraph mark before the table without
upsetting the label layout (I don't know if it's possible in this
case, but perhaps you could format the paragraph mark font size as 1
point) then re-execute the merge to a new document, you should be
able to do a global Edit|Replace of ^b by ^m.
Best I can do for now.
Peter Jamieson
"Matthew Lemin" wrote in
message ...
A friend has a major problem with a 250 page label mail merge
document. He needs to change some page layout settings for the
whole document but it is only letting him change the first page.
When he tries to "apply to whole document" it comes up with a "fix
margins" box that won't go away unless he
applies it to the current section only. I have replicated this on
my own computer as well. It uses standard A4 Avery label 7165
(parcel label).
I noticed that each page is separated by a Section break (next
page). So I
decided to try and use "find and replace" to replace all the section
breaks
with page breaks. This did not work as although it would find the
section breaks it just would not replace them with page breaks - it
basically just ignored my command.
So, in order to get this to work he now has to manually delete every
section
break at the end of every page of 250 pages!
He does one of these mail merges every week - and does not fancy
going through this process every time. He has Office 2000 on his
home machine and
this works fine.
Is there any way to
a. get Word to separate pages with a page break rather than a
section break
b. force Word to replace the section breaks with page breaks, or
c. create a document with automatic page breaks?
All help gratefully received.