I'm using Word 2002.

My document consists of labels, each of which is unique by virtue of Mail
Merge. Essentially, each label contains unique information obtained from
each record in the Mail Merge as well as some values that are the same on
each label. The mergefields are working fine: each label has the unique
information that it should have. The problem is with the values that are
supposed to be the same on every label.

I am under the impression that Fill-in fields are used to supply values that
are going to be the same on each label in a given Mail Merge. I defined a
fill-in field in the top left label in the grid and defined it with the \o
option so that I would only be prompted for the value once. Then, I
propagated that label to the rest of the labels in the grid and clicked on
"Merge to New Document". I had thought I'd only be prompted for the value of
the Fill-in once and that value would then be applied to every label
produced by this particular execution of the mail merge. Instead, I get
prompted for EACH LABEL.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get Word to only prompt me for the Fill-in
value ONCE for each time I click "Merge to New Document" instead of once for
each label in the merge?

I've tried everything I can think of but nothing seems to help.

I'm not sure if this is a red herring but when I select the Fill-in and
click on Edit Field, then click on "Field Codes", it shows the \o option
just fine. When I click on "Hide Codes" the "Prompt before merging bookmark
text" checkbox is checked. If I uncheck the checkbox and then click on
"Field Codes" again, \o code has disappeared. I'm not sure if that's
relevant but could it explain why I am getting prompted for the fill-in
before every label? If the checkbox is checked, on the subsequent labels,
could Word be ignoring the \o on the subsequent labels?

--
Rhino

Perhaps you should try an Ask field as it is used to prompt the user for
text to assign to a bookmark. You would have the bookmark on the first
label and a cross reference to the text of the bookmark on each of the other
labels.

It is however a bit of an unusual situation to be doing this sort of thing
with labels.

--
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

"Rhino" wrote in message
...
I'm using Word 2002.

My document consists of labels, each of which is unique by virtue of Mail
Merge. Essentially, each label contains unique information obtained from
each record in the Mail Merge as well as some values that are the same on
each label. The mergefields are working fine: each label has the unique
information that it should have. The problem is with the values that are
supposed to be the same on every label.

I am under the impression that Fill-in fields are used to supply values
that are going to be the same on each label in a given Mail Merge. I
defined a fill-in field in the top left label in the grid and defined it
with the \o option so that I would only be prompted for the value once.
Then, I propagated that label to the rest of the labels in the grid and
clicked on "Merge to New Document". I had thought I'd only be prompted for
the value of the Fill-in once and that value would then be applied to
every label produced by this particular execution of the mail merge.
Instead, I get prompted for EACH LABEL.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get Word to only prompt me for the Fill-in
value ONCE for each time I click "Merge to New Document" instead of once
for each label in the merge?

I've tried everything I can think of but nothing seems to help.

I'm not sure if this is a red herring but when I select the Fill-in and
click on Edit Field, then click on "Field Codes", it shows the \o option
just fine. When I click on "Hide Codes" the "Prompt before merging
bookmark text" checkbox is checked. If I uncheck the checkbox and then
click on "Field Codes" again, \o code has disappeared. I'm not sure if
that's relevant but could it explain why I am getting prompted for the
fill-in before every label? If the checkbox is checked, on the subsequent
labels, could Word be ignoring the \o on the subsequent labels?

--
Rhino

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
Perhaps you should try an Ask field as it is used to prompt the user for
text to assign to a bookmark. You would have the bookmark on the first
label and a cross reference to the text of the bookmark on each of the
other labels.

I think I did what you described but it didn't work any better than using a
Fill-in. I put an Ask field in the top left hand corner of the first label,
then put a Ref field that referred to the new bookmark in the desired place
in the top left label. Then, I created an identical Ref field on the second
label and propagated this second Ref field to the remaining labels. I
_assume_ that Propagate Labels propagates the contents of the second label
if my cursor is in the second label when I click the button. But I'm not
sure how to tell if the Ask field is present on each of the labels or just
the first one: the Ask leaves no visible mark on any label to tell me that
it is there!

When I "Merge to New Document", I get prompted for the value of my Ask value
on every label, just like I did with Fill-in. The correct value appears in
the dialog each time so I just need to click OK each time rather than typing
in the value each time but it's very tedious nonetheless.

It is however a bit of an unusual situation to be doing this sort of thing
with labels.

Perhaps I'm asking too much of Word! Or perhaps there's a much better way to
do what I want to do.

My labels aren't really labels in the sense of sticky things that you apply
to an envelope, for instance. I'm actually creating membership cards for a
club I belong to. The cards are being printed on Avery 8317 business card
sheets so I have been assuming that I should be using label-handling
techniques to generate them.

However, unlike a regular business card which has the same information on
every card, my membership cards have a different name on each one. This has
been easy to handle by merging the labels with a new list that I created in
Access and connected to the document via the Mail Merge wizard. The tricky
part seems to be putting the year on each card. I'd like the Mail Merge to
prompt me ONCE for which year it is, then have that year appear in the
appropriate place on each label/card. Also, since our membership year runs
from July one year to June the next, I want to show the next year on each
card as well, so the card looks like this:


MY BIG FAT BOOK CLUB
logo
John Doe
July 2006 - June 2007


Therefore, each card has the same last line on it. But next year, when I
generate the next batch of cards, the last line should read "July 2007 -
June 2008". And the year after that, the last line should be "July 2008 -
June 2009". etc. You get the picture.

That's why I want the current year and next year values to be prompted at
the start of the merge: they will be different for each batch of cards.

Can you suggest any way I can do this? Or will I need to put the current
year and next year in each label and then remember to do a "replace all" for
both values before I run the cards each year? That's bearable I suppose but
I was hoping to be a little more elegant than that; I'd like this document
to work for the foreseeable future with the user only required to enter the
current year and the next year once for each batch of cards.

It would be even slicker if I could determine the current year by
interrogating the system and then using that value as the current year, then
add one to that value and use that as the next year value. But even if I
could imbed the current year in each label, I'm dubious about whether there
is a way to calculate the next year so that it too could be imbedded in the
label. Then again, I'm still pretty new to Word so I would be delighted if
you proved me wrong!

Any suggestions for how I can accomplish what I want to do?

--
Rhino


"Rhino" wrote in message
...
I'm using Word 2002.

My document consists of labels, each of which is unique by virtue of Mail
Merge. Essentially, each label contains unique information obtained from
each record in the Mail Merge as well as some values that are the same on
each label. The mergefields are working fine: each label has the unique
information that it should have. The problem is with the values that are
supposed to be the same on every label.

I am under the impression that Fill-in fields are used to supply values
that are going to be the same on each label in a given Mail Merge. I
defined a fill-in field in the top left label in the grid and defined it
with the \o option so that I would only be prompted for the value once.
Then, I propagated that label to the rest of the labels in the grid and
clicked on "Merge to New Document". I had thought I'd only be prompted
for the value of the Fill-in once and that value would then be applied to
every label produced by this particular execution of the mail merge.
Instead, I get prompted for EACH LABEL.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get Word to only prompt me for the
Fill-in value ONCE for each time I click "Merge to New Document" instead
of once for each label in the merge?

I've tried everything I can think of but nothing seems to help.

I'm not sure if this is a red herring but when I select the Fill-in and
click on Edit Field, then click on "Field Codes", it shows the \o option
just fine. When I click on "Hide Codes" the "Prompt before merging
bookmark text" checkbox is checked. If I uncheck the checkbox and then
click on "Field Codes" again, \o code has disappeared. I'm not sure if
that's relevant but could it explain why I am getting prompted for the
fill-in before every label? If the checkbox is checked, on the subsequent
labels, could Word be ignoring the \o on the subsequent labels?

--
Rhino

What I believe you would need to do is set up a ref field in the first label
to a bookmark on that label, delete the bookmark, propogate the labels so
you get the ref field on the other labels, then delete the ref field from
the first label and reinsert the bookmark and then the Ask field.

--
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

"Rhino" wrote in message
...

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
Perhaps you should try an Ask field as it is used to prompt the user for
text to assign to a bookmark. You would have the bookmark on the first
label and a cross reference to the text of the bookmark on each of the
other labels.

I think I did what you described but it didn't work any better than using
a Fill-in. I put an Ask field in the top left hand corner of the first
label, then put a Ref field that referred to the new bookmark in the
desired place in the top left label. Then, I created an identical Ref
field on the second label and propagated this second Ref field to the
remaining labels. I _assume_ that Propagate Labels propagates the contents
of the second label if my cursor is in the second label when I click the
button. But I'm not sure how to tell if the Ask field is present on each
of the labels or just the first one: the Ask leaves no visible mark on any
label to tell me that it is there!

When I "Merge to New Document", I get prompted for the value of my Ask
value on every label, just like I did with Fill-in. The correct value
appears in the dialog each time so I just need to click OK each time
rather than typing in the value each time but it's very tedious
nonetheless.

It is however a bit of an unusual situation to be doing this sort of
thing with labels.

Perhaps I'm asking too much of Word! Or perhaps there's a much better way
to do what I want to do.

My labels aren't really labels in the sense of sticky things that you
apply to an envelope, for instance. I'm actually creating membership cards
for a club I belong to. The cards are being printed on Avery 8317 business
card sheets so I have been assuming that I should be using label-handling
techniques to generate them.

However, unlike a regular business card which has the same information on
every card, my membership cards have a different name on each one. This
has been easy to handle by merging the labels with a new list that I
created in Access and connected to the document via the Mail Merge wizard.
The tricky part seems to be putting the year on each card. I'd like the
Mail Merge to prompt me ONCE for which year it is, then have that year
appear in the appropriate place on each label/card. Also, since our
membership year runs from July one year to June the next, I want to show
the next year on each card as well, so the card looks like this:


MY BIG FAT BOOK CLUB
logo
John Doe
July 2006 - June 2007


Therefore, each card has the same last line on it. But next year, when I
generate the next batch of cards, the last line should read "July 2007 -
June 2008". And the year after that, the last line should be "July 2008 -
June 2009". etc. You get the picture.

That's why I want the current year and next year values to be prompted at
the start of the merge: they will be different for each batch of cards.

Can you suggest any way I can do this? Or will I need to put the current
year and next year in each label and then remember to do a "replace all"
for both values before I run the cards each year? That's bearable I
suppose but I was hoping to be a little more elegant than that; I'd like
this document to work for the foreseeable future with the user only
required to enter the current year and the next year once for each batch
of cards.

It would be even slicker if I could determine the current year by
interrogating the system and then using that value as the current year,
then add one to that value and use that as the next year value. But even
if I could imbed the current year in each label, I'm dubious about whether
there is a way to calculate the next year so that it too could be imbedded
in the label. Then again, I'm still pretty new to Word so I would be
delighted if you proved me wrong!

Any suggestions for how I can accomplish what I want to do?

--
Rhino


"Rhino" wrote in message
...
I'm using Word 2002.

My document consists of labels, each of which is unique by virtue of
Mail Merge. Essentially, each label contains unique information obtained
from each record in the Mail Merge as well as some values that are the
same on each label. The mergefields are working fine: each label has the
unique information that it should have. The problem is with the values
that are supposed to be the same on every label.

I am under the impression that Fill-in fields are used to supply values
that are going to be the same on each label in a given Mail Merge. I
defined a fill-in field in the top left label in the grid and defined it
with the \o option so that I would only be prompted for the value once.
Then, I propagated that label to the rest of the labels in the grid and
clicked on "Merge to New Document". I had thought I'd only be prompted
for the value of the Fill-in once and that value would then be applied
to every label produced by this particular execution of the mail merge.
Instead, I get prompted for EACH LABEL.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get Word to only prompt me for the
Fill-in value ONCE for each time I click "Merge to New Document" instead
of once for each label in the merge?

I've tried everything I can think of but nothing seems to help.

I'm not sure if this is a red herring but when I select the Fill-in and
click on Edit Field, then click on "Field Codes", it shows the \o option
just fine. When I click on "Hide Codes" the "Prompt before merging
bookmark text" checkbox is checked. If I uncheck the checkbox and then
click on "Field Codes" again, \o code has disappeared. I'm not sure if
that's relevant but could it explain why I am getting prompted for the
fill-in before every label? If the checkbox is checked, on the
subsequent labels, could Word be ignoring the \o on the subsequent
labels?

--
Rhino