Sal Soghoian

Q: Pages 5.5 Mail and Data Merge

Pages 5.5 includes new scripting support for locating and replacing text placeholders. In addition, text placeholders can be "tagged" in the application interface, with script identifiers by selecting the text placeholder to tag and entering its "script tag" in the the new Script Tag field available at the bottom of the More tab in the format sidebar. With this new ability, scripts can replace the text placeholders in a document with data from other sources, including Numbers spreadsheets.

 

But you don't have to write scripts to take advantage of this new feature!

 

To make it easy for non-scripters to perform Mail merges, and other automated data merging tasks, there is a free application, the Pages Data Merge application, available at: http://iworkautomation.com/pages/script-tags-data-merge.html

 

Watch the movie, follow the instructions, and give it a try!

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 2:43 PM

Close

Q: Pages 5.5 Mail and Data Merge

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 10 of 11 last Next
  • by Daniel2500,

    Daniel2500 Daniel2500 Nov 24, 2015 8:32 AM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 24, 2015 8:32 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Hi Sal,

     

    Wonder if you can help me?  I have been using pages data merge to mail out letters to clients.  In my numbers spread sheet, I enter names, address, state, zip, etc.  I then use this data to fill in my Pages form letter in the appropriate location.  Once the data has been entered into the spread sheet, I would select the records I want to import, then open my pages doc and pages data merge.  Once imported, I print out the letters for mailing.  This has been working great until last week.  Now, no matter what records I select in the spread sheet, only the first record gets merged.  For example, if I select records 10 thru 20, only the first record/address gets merged, 10 times.  I have tried restarting my computer, deleted and reinstalled pages data merge.  Nothing seems to work.  Thank you in advance for your help.

     

    Daniel

  • by GLMR,

    GLMR GLMR Dec 1, 2015 1:25 PM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 1, 2015 1:25 PM in response to Sal Soghoian

    This was close to being a good mail merge solution for me but unfortunately has a few issues.

     

    1) Like others I would like the ability to produce a multi page (Pages) document rather than multiple individual page documents. I am using it primarily to print customer labels and as well as for ease of printing on my label printer I need to go through the labels making minor changes. For this reason combining PDFs wouldn't work and seems a bit of a clumsy solution anyway.

     

    2) Also as requested by a few others I need some lines of an address to be ignored if there is no data present in that record. This mainly affects me where some customers have a company name and some don't.

     

    3) I also need the option to amend the punctuation to either Title Case and/or Upper Case.

     

    I had been using Microsoft Word 2004 to do all of the above previously and having bought a new MacBook I am surprised it can't be done in Pages. Will need to check out Microsoft Office for now but will check back for any updates here.

  • by lymanwelch,

    lymanwelch lymanwelch Dec 26, 2015 12:47 PM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2015 12:47 PM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Sal,

    I need to prepare merge letters. I am using Pages version 5.6.1. In order to use the iAutomation data merge app, I need to tag the text placeholders in the Pages template document. But my version of Pages has no "script tag" field at the bottom of the More tab in the format sidebar. So I can't use the iAutomation data merge app. Do you know any solution to this problem?

    Will

  • by funkyputul,

    funkyputul funkyputul Jan 6, 2016 3:02 AM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 6, 2016 3:02 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Hello Sal

     

    Thanks for the this Application, after many searches, this is the best solution I found. I have one issue though, when I check the box to send emails automatically, I see new emails Items with info (From Pages and Numbers Docs) and I need to manually send each mail.

     

    OSX El Capitan - 10.11.2

    Pages - 5.6.1

    Numbers: 3.6.1

    Mail: 9.2

     

     

    Thanks

    Kabir

  • by AmyPet,

    AmyPet AmyPet Jan 7, 2016 12:44 PM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 12:44 PM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Thanks for this post and the tutorial video.

     

    When I ran 'Pages Data Merge', using a Pages 5.5.3 doc and Numbers, I get all the way to the end, and get an error message of -2700 (1,002).I have seen a post that said try a new pages documents (not a template) and that solves it. But it did not. Any ideas?

  • by peterdjames,

    peterdjames peterdjames Mar 17, 2016 12:09 AM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 17, 2016 12:09 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Does this still work for Pages 5.6?  I downloaded the example files and followed the instructions in the video and it just says "READ ERROR: There was a problem getting the placeholder tags from the front Pages document."  Is anyone getting it to work with Pages 5.6?  Mac OS X 10.10.5

  • by wns_support,

    wns_support wns_support May 10, 2016 12:49 PM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 10, 2016 12:49 PM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Hi Sal, is there some way to get a "next record" functionality when having multiple placeholders on a page? May have missed this in the thread.

  • by joehod10,

    joehod10 joehod10 May 21, 2016 2:27 AM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 21, 2016 2:27 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Hello Sal,

    I am not an expert with computers however i have been trying to use this very useful application,

    i start by opening my pages and numbers documents, selecting the data in numbers and setting the placeholder tags on pages.

    Then i open the Data merge application and select the numbers data i need but when i attempt to choose a placeholder tag it says no tags,

    then if i try to 'update list' it says READ ERROR, Error getting placeholder tags from pages document.

    What am i doing wrong? everyone else seems to be so successful hahaha

    PLEASE HELP ME !

    J

  • by JudyKenWI,

    JudyKenWI JudyKenWI May 22, 2016 10:59 AM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (13 points)
    iWork
    May 22, 2016 10:59 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

    The link to the movie was frozen; therefore I could not view it before downloading. Once I downloaded it on my Mac, the following message appeared.

    "''Pages Data Merge' can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer"

    Useless!

  • by VikingOSX,

    VikingOSX VikingOSX May 23, 2016 2:02 PM in response to JudyKenWI
    Level 7 (20,618 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 23, 2016 2:02 PM in response to JudyKenWI

    When an application is downloaded from outside the OS X App Store, then you must right-click on it, and select open. OS X will then verify the application, and a second dialog will appear where you select open again. This is a one-time ritual, and afterwards, you can launch it as you would a normal application.

  • by flyter16,

    flyter16 flyter16 May 24, 2016 10:09 AM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iWork
    May 24, 2016 10:09 AM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Hi Sal, first of all, thanks a lot for your great work.

     

    I'm just learning about workflows and automator, and I'm trying Pages Data Merge. I have all the information that I need in a Numbers file, but there are a few places where I don't have anything. And I want to keep it that way.

     

    However when I run Pages Data Merge, those empty spaces appear in the document with the placeholder's name. I'm attaching 3 images to be as clear as I can. For example, in the second image should say just "Señor" (no "Señortitulo"); and, in the third image, the second line must be empty.

     

    Hope you can help me. Thank you very much!

     

    PD: I'm from Chile so sorry for my poor English.

    Captura de pantalla 2016-05-24 a las 12.59.52 p.m..jpg

    Captura de pantalla 2016-05-24 a las 1.04.08 p.m..jpgCaptura de pantalla 2016-05-24 a las 12.58.42 p.m..jpg

  • by kevinwilliams,

    kevinwilliams kevinwilliams Jun 21, 2016 12:33 PM in response to Sal Soghoian
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 21, 2016 12:33 PM in response to Sal Soghoian

    Hi Sal

     

    Great piece of software but I have a problem implementing it.  I get a No Placeholder Tags message in the pull down menu.  If I try to Update Tags I get a Read Error  "There was a problem getting the placeholder tags from the front Pages document."

     

    I tried it with your sample docs with the same result.  Looks like no connection with the Pages doc.

     

    Any ideas??

     

    Regards

     

    Kevin Williams

  • by Qabyss,

    Qabyss Qabyss Jun 23, 2016 4:51 PM in response to AmyPet
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 23, 2016 4:51 PM in response to AmyPet

    I also had the error "-2700 (1,002)". I found that the error was occurring because I had not assigned a data item to one of my pages text placeholders. I was able to resolve the issue by removing a placeholder in my Pages document that I did not need. I was able to reproduce and resolve this error several times, so I feel confident that you are encountering the same issue, and will benefit from this resolution.

     

    <Note that the pages document and the numbers document need to be opened prior to opening and running the Pages Data Merge app, or you may encounter a missing resource error, as mentioned previously in this thread. If you encounter that error, restart your computer, open the pages document, then open the numbers document and select your rows, then open the Pages Data Merge app (in that order).>

     

    Best.
    ~Q

  • by turlie,

    turlie turlie Jul 26, 2016 7:56 AM in response to JeanVis
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 26, 2016 7:56 AM in response to JeanVis

    Thank you SAL for figuring it out! Totally works now!!!!!! FYI - if you are getting a "Numbers got an error: document 1 doesn’t understand the “exists” message."

     

    1. Save your Pages and Number Documents

    2. Close Everything (PAGES,NUMBERS, PAGE DATA MERGE)

    3. Reopen your Pages Document

    4. Reopen your Numbers

    5. Reopen you Page Data Merge App

     

    it should work now.

  • by alsangage,

    alsangage alsangage Aug 3, 2016 6:54 AM in response to macmikey
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 3, 2016 6:54 AM in response to macmikey

    The pages data merge has worked for me before. However, today, I cannot get it to find the placeholders in my pages document. It is the same document that has worked in the past. Creating a new document and redefining placeholders and script does not work either. I'm using pages 5.6.2

     

    Alan

first Previous Page 10 of 11 last Next