Mail merge to a 4 postcard pages document from numbers mailing list docume

Hi,

You can do it as a mail merge, but you'll need to rethink your post cards as one-page documents on a page the size of your four card page.

For example, if you merge is placing addresses onto (pre-printed) cards which come four to a US Letter size page, lay out the merge fields to correctly place the address on a card enlarged to fill the page.

Merge to a New Document. For your full list, you'll get a 500 page document with one address per page.

When you Print the New Document, press command-P, then use the Pop-up menu in the print dialogue to choose Layout. From the pop-up on that page of the dialogue, choose 4 (to a page).

Before doing an actual Print, though, I would suggest you do two types of test runs:

Go back to Copies and Pages in the pop-up where you found Layout, click the From: button and enter 1 to 4 in the boxes. Then click Preview to see the result in Preview. If it doesn't look right, close the Preview window, Close the multi page merg ed document—NOT the one page Merge document—(without saving), and adjust the position and size of the address on the original Merge document.

When the Preview looks right, print it to a sheet of plain paper (first page of four cards only) and check the alignment with the actual post card sheet. If necessary, adjust as before. When it's correct, load the post cards and print the job. (I'd take a cautious approach and do this in 10 sheet batches to ensure that any errors affected only a few of the cards.)

Regards,
Barry

Hi bl,

Welcome to Apple Discussions and the Pages '09 forum.

This won't directly address your specific question, but does address the topic of mail merge, and an issue you will run into if I'm reading your description accurately.

From your description and subject line, I gather that you have your document set up to include four postcards on a single page, and want to address each of the cards to a separate recipient.

Pages does not support merges from multiple records on a single document.

All of the Merge Fields in one document are filled from a single record. Pages produces a separate document for each record. So if you placed four "Name" merge fields, one into each postcard space in your document, all four would contain the same name.

Regards,
Barry

Gone to investigate the issue you describe. More later.

Hi again,

I'm not having much luck recreating the situation you describe.

The only circumstances I've seen under which the + is greyed in the Inspector is if I do not have the insertion point placed where it is possible to insert a merge field. When that is true, the Merge Field > item in the Insert menu is also greyed.

I also noted that Pages would not let me insert the same field (First Name) more than once on the same page/section of a Page Layout document.

Regards,
Barry

EDIT: Posted beFore reading your second message. Reply on that to come.
B

Whenever I see anything this quirky my suspicions fall on the System being updated with Software Update instead of the Combo updater. Try DLing the Combo version of the updater and re-upgrading with that.

There also have been quirky things happening with PostScript fonts in OSX 10.6.7 so it is possible there are other bugs as well.

Peter

BusyL,

I suggest that you create a new Numbers document and a new Pages document. Keep everything to a minimum, put just a few fields of data in your Numbers doc and one or two rows. Then try again to create a merge field. If that works it rules out something wrong with your system and isolates it to your big Numbers merge table/doc that you worked so hard on or your Pages doc, but in any case we'll make some progress on isolating the problem.

Give us some idea of the nature of the Numbers document. How many sheets? How many Tables on the Sheet with the merge Table.

Jerry

It's quite easy to achieve your goal.



Here, I assume that you use a database with 3 fields by record.
It would be easy to adjust to your true database.

Don't merge from this table but from the table to_merge.

In A2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,1+(ROW()-2)*4,0)
in B2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,1+(ROW()-2)*4,1)
In C2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,1+(ROW()-2)*4,2)
in D2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,1+(ROW()-2)*4,3)

In E2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,2+(ROW()-2)*4,0)
in F2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,2+(ROW()-2)*4,1)
In G2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,2+(ROW()-2)*4,2)
in H2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,2+(ROW()-2)*4,3)

In I2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,3+(ROW()-2)*4,0)
in J2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,3+(ROW()-2)*4,1)
In K2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,3+(ROW()-2)*4,2)
in L2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,3+(ROW()-2)*4,3)

In M2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,4+(ROW()-2)*4,0)
in N2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,4+(ROW()-2)*4,1)
In O2, the formula is :
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,4+(ROW()-2)*4,2)
in P2, it is:
=OFFSET(database :: $A$1,4+(ROW()-2)*4,3)

Select A2…P2 then Fill Down.

In the Pages document, insert the fields
firstName#1 lastName#1 address#1 in the card #1
firstName#2 lastName#2 address#2 in the card #2
firstName#3 lastName#3 address#3 in the card #3
firstName#4 lastName#4 address#4 in the card #4

Then apply the merge feature.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 4 avril 2011 18:46:27

Your description of the problem suggested another problem, but if you just want to know how to do merges:

http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=142&highlight=merge& mforum=iworktipsntrick

Peter

busylady wrote:
Sorry to say but this did not work either. I opened a blank page document and attempted to set up mail merge fields in the space where it would print in the proper location on the pre-printed post cards that I created on a blank page document as well.

Hi bl,

This sounds like you are trying to place all four cards onto the (single) blank page document.

That isn't going to work with mail merge (unless you want to send four copies of the post card to each person). Pages merges from ONE record onto each document. You can have only ONE post card on your single page, and it must be twice as wide and twice as long as the physical post card you will be printing on, so that when you eventually print using a 4 to a page layout, the reduced post cards from Pages will fit the actual size postcards on paper.

Here's a sample page layout for the merge doc. The green rectangle would be removed, as the doc is intended only to label the post cards. This is a full size page, reduced to fit the screen, The rulers are in inches.

Merged with four records to a New document, then printed using a 4 to a page layout, the result is this. Again this is one full (letter size page).

The people on the phone with Apple Support say Mail Merge won't work on a blank pages document in a text box. They are saying it is only designed to work with address book files. I reminded them that one of the options was to select a numbers document to bring data in from and they put me on hold to investigate. They were able to to open an invitation template in pages and the mail merge fields were then available to them with the option of numbers document. Unfortunately I don't want to mail an invitation from a template.

In the sample above, the merge fields were inserted into a text box on a single page Pages page layout document. The text box's outline and handles can be seen in the first image. The fields must be inserted using the standard Address Book field names. These are changed (by clicking the field name, then the column name in lists in the Merge dialogue) to match the column headers of the Numbers document when the merge is begun.

I really thought your response was going to work.

I still think it will.

Regards,
Barry

KOENIG Yvan wrote:
Hello Barry
Using what I posted we may create four different cards per page !

Yes, it will. It's a significantly different direction from what I've been suggesting, and I'm not sure the OP is ready to go in that direction.

Reflecting further on the problem this morning, I'm thinking a solution producing four cards on the actual merge page (yours, for example) could provide better control of placement of the addresses on each card.

Regards,
Barry

Barry wrote:

KOENIG Yvan wrote:
Hello Barry
Using what I posted we may create four different cards per page !

Yes, it will. It's a significantly different direction from what I've been suggesting, and I'm not sure the OP is ready to go in that direction.

Reflecting further on the problem this morning, I'm thinking a solution producing four cards on the actual merge page (yours, for example) could provide better control of placement of the addresses on each card.

In fact, what I described is what is doing the script which I posted several times for labels.
Here we are just trying to print sheet of four labels.

An alternate scheme is to build a template with four pictures, print nbCards/4 sheets
then apply a tip described some days ago (sheet with two columns, text box, replacement of section breaks by paragraph breaks) then print the text labels on the already printed pictures.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 7 avril 2011 08:25:27