[John Galt]

I have been using Word 03 to do up to 400,000 mailmerged letters a month. I
merge the first & last names, with other very specific fields from Excel into
the body of the letter. On page two I put the address and the Barcode
positioned so that i can tri-fold the one page and have a mailable piece (no
envelope costs!). Furthermore I use a bulk mail permit for obvious reasons,
which i also print on page two using Word. I read references from Feb of '07
saying Word will not work for this? I have done some as recently as Aug 07
with no problem? How hard can it be to incorporate whatever change the USPS
wants to a barcode? Tell me MS is not completely abandoning this useful
barcode feature.

I know 3rd party programs can generate these new Barcodes, but I don't use
label stickers, I use Word and incorporate the address and barcode right into
my letters ...will i be able to manipulate the address & Zipcode data in
Excel to have Word put the proper number(s) in Barcode format?

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I understand that the following thread explains the situation:

Quote

Well-researched yourself!

As I now understand it, you can still use the BARCODE field in Word 2007
merges despite what the Word documentation suggests, but you have to enter
them manually because the necessary checkboxes have been disabled on the
relevant dialog boxes.

Since I live in the UK I have no idea whether adding barcodes speeds up the
mail in the US.

Peter Jamieson

"RolandB" wrote in message
...
Peter, thanks for your research! I got a little persistent and discovered
what you presented here. I first found a document on how to read, or how
to
generate the barcode and thats when I found as you indicate that the merge
generates a ZIP+4 barcode. Thats actually untrue in that a true ZIP+4 has
52
bars. The 'envelope' or single label generation creates the 62 bar
version
which includes as the last two digits the last two digits of the street
address! The merge version generates a 62 bar version BUT generates a
'99'
for the 'last two digits' of the street address. Which is why they
wouldn't
be useful for bulk mail. I personally believe you can speed delivery by
including the barcode in your mailing. I always use the barcode
generation
when sending any business correspondence. I'm sorry Word has dropped it
from
the mail-merge of 2007! I probably don't do that much for it to affect me
but others are being deprived of a partial benefit!
Roland

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

This isn't an "explanation" but rather a set of observations
a. BARCODE will generate different barcodes depending on whether you
provide it with just the ZIP+4 code, or the street address and ZIP+4
code.
(As I understand it, the Way Word generates the bar code when it uses the
street address as well does not conform to the current USPS standards and
is
best avoided if you are doing mass mailings, but you might want to check
that).
b. when you create a single envelope, Word inserts a Barcode field as
follows:
{ BARCODE ENV_ZIPCODE1\b \u }
followed by the address

ENV_ZIPCODE1 is a bookmark which "covers" the street address/city, state,
ZIP+4 line. In this case you get the barcode that includes the
information
in the street address
c. when you create an envelope merge, I don't know what happens as the
checkboxes for inserting a Barcode field are disabled here, but if I copy
the envelope design from the single-envelope scenario, and replace the
address by the merge field(s) necessary to insert the address, then
bookmark
those fields with ENV_ZIPCODE1, despite the fact that the bookmark
"covers"
exactly the same text, I get the "ZIP+4" only version of the barcode.
d. If you put the entire address inside the ZIPCODE field, e.g.

{ BARCODE "10 Street Address
City, XX 12345-6789" }

or

{ BARCODE "{ MERGEFIELD mycompleteaddressfield }" }

I get the "street address+ZIP+4" version of the barcode.

So I guess that the difference has something to do with the way that the
BARCODE field gets the text from the bookmark. But beyond that, I think
you'd probably have to have the Word source code to see what is
happening. I
have no idea whether or not this is "by design".

Peter Jamieson


"RolandB" wrote in message
...
I recently had need to send mail to an individual at USPS ZIP+4 address.
I
addressed a single label using Word and printed it. I later had cause
to
use
the Merge feature to create multiple labels and happened to include in
the
Excel database the same identical ZIP+4 address! I was very surprised
to
find that the postal barcode it generated was DIFFERENT (in the last 16
bars
short/tall)! I then tried my own barcode (75248-3060) with the same
experiment and lo, it too generated two diferent barcodes! Anyone
guess
why?



Unquote

--
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

"John Galt" wrote in message
...
I have been using Word 03 to do up to 400,000 mailmerged letters a month. I
merge the first & last names, with other very specific fields from Excel
into
the body of the letter. On page two I put the address and the Barcode
positioned so that i can tri-fold the one page and have a mailable piece
(no
envelope costs!). Furthermore I use a bulk mail permit for obvious
reasons,
which i also print on page two using Word. I read references from Feb of
'07
saying Word will not work for this? I have done some as recently as Aug 07
with no problem? How hard can it be to incorporate whatever change the
USPS
wants to a barcode? Tell me MS is not completely abandoning this useful
barcode feature.

I know 3rd party programs can generate these new Barcodes, but I don't use
label stickers, I use Word and incorporate the address and barcode right
into
my letters ...will i be able to manipulate the address & Zipcode data in
Excel to have Word put the proper number(s) in Barcode format?