Mail merge sources grayed out

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Level 1

9 points

Mail merge sources grayed out

I'm doing a mail merge for the first time on Pages. trying to link a Numbers spreadsheet to the Pages letter.

I tried with iCloud documents, but after inserting mail merge fields into the Pages doc I tried to link to Numbers doc, but the Numbers doc was grayed out (as were all documents).

i assumed it was iCloud being flaky, so i changed the documents to local. Stil no luck.

The fields have the same names as the spreadsheet headers.

Everything appears to be fine until I try to select a mail merge source. I select "Numbers document" and every file that I can find is grayed out.

What am I doing wrong?

Any help would be gratefully accepted - I'm running against a deadline 🙂

And by the way, does iCloud mail merge work?

Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Aug 22, 2012 8:26 PM

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Answer 1

Peggy

Level 8

41,847 points

Aug 22, 2012 9:41 PM in response to aramari1

You need to designate a row as a header row in the Numbers table. Imported spreadsheets don't mark the first row as a header row. If the top row does contain the labels, hover the cursor over the row number, click the down-facing arrow that appears & choose convert to header row.

If you don't have a row with labels to convert, add a header row using the Table menu or click the icon (middle icon) in the format bar then type in the labels.

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Answer 2

aramari1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 22, 2012 9:50 PM in response to Peggy

The top row with labels was already in light gray. There was no option to convert to header row (assuming it was already header row?). In any case, I "added header row above" and copied the headers to that row.

It didn't help my ability to select the file as mail merge source though.

My issue remains that whether I have added mail merge fields that match the column headers in my source or not, when I try to link the data source Numbers spreadsheet to the Pages file, that Numbers file and every other file is "grayed out"

Thanks though!

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Answer 3

aramari1 Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 23, 2012 4:43 AM in response to Jerrold Green1

I re-started the computer, no change. I only have one User Account... 😢

This is killing me! I've just spent the money on the iWork apps, created a nice Pages doc that I can't replicate on Word, now the mail merge isn't even looking like it will work for me!

Any thoughts on what might be going wrong here?

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Answer 4

Aug 24, 2012 4:29 AM in response to aramari1

AraMari,

It probalby wouldn't hurt to delete the plist files for Pages and Numbers in your old user account. In your old account, Close the apps and switch to Finder. Hold down the Option key while you click the Go menu item and (sitll holding the Option key) select Library. Then navigate to Preferences and delete:

com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist

com.apple.iWork.Numbers.plist

com.apple.iWork09.plist

When you restart the apps, new plist files will be created. Any preference you altered will now be reset to their defaults.

Jerry

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Answer 5

YOPOMAC

Level 1

0 points

Jun 24, 2013 6:21 AM in response to aramari1

Same problem here. Cannot mailmerge with a Numbers table if it is in iCloud. It works if you move the file to the local machine but if you try and use an iCloud file you can't as they are all greyed out.

Any solutions? Have tried deleting the plists. Still greyed out.

Only bought this to do some mail merges!

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