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Merger mania: Wordperfect mail merge

By Kristin Nelson

Ed McMahon is at it again. He's sending millions of personalized letters announcing that you may have won $10 million. No, Ed did not address each letter. A mailing house used a computer and a procedure known as mail merge to combine a list of recipients with a standard announcement so that your letter would have your name on it.

You, too, can use a mail merge whenever you want to add personalized information to a standard letter or format, such as a cover letter, conference invitation, patient bill, or name tag. By following a few simple steps using Word-Perfect 5.1, you'll be on your way to simplifying your work.

Overview

1. Preparing for mail merge

Determine the content of your letter and decide which information will change from letter to letter. The smallest piece of variable information (e.g., a first name) is known as a field, and all the fields for one individual or letter make up a record. For reference, write down the field information you will use, as shown in figure 1.

2. Creating a secondary file

Use WordPerfect 5.1 to create a new document. Following the field order established in step 1, type the information for the first field of the first record (i.e., a first name). Press <F9> to end this field with an {END FIELD} code. The number of the field you are editing appears in the lower left corner of your screen. Type the remaining information for this record, ending each field with an{END FIELD} code and the last field with the {END RECORD} code (press <Shift-F9, 2>). WordPerfect adds a hard page break (=====) after each {END RECORD}code.

Type the information for the remaining records, following the same field order used for the first record. Save this file and type <F7, Y, N> to clear the screen.

Tip: WordPerfect interprets all text up to an {END FIELD} code as one field to permit a multiple-line entry. If you are missing information for any field in a record, press <F9> to enter an {END FIELD} code as a place holder.

3. Creating a primary file

Create a new file containing the text that does not change. Place a {FIELD} merge code wherever you want WordPerfect to insert varying text from the secondary file. To insert a {FIELD} merge code, type <Shift-F9> followed by F for Field. At the subsequent Enter Field: prompt, type the number of the field to use (e.g., type 1 for the first field in the data record). Refer to the list you created in step 1 for the proper field number. The {FIELD} merge code appears in the primary document, followed by the specified field number (e.g., {FIELD}1~). Save this primary document and type <F7, Y, N> to clear the screen.

Tips: In the primary document, you can use fields any number of times and in any order by entering the corresponding field number.

If certain fields are sometimes left blank (e.g., if not all records in the secondary file have a company name and two addresses), add a question mark after each of those field numbers when entering the {FIELD} merge code (e.g., type 3?). WordPerfect will not leave a blank space in the final document if the field is blank.

4. Merging the two files

With a blank document on your screen, initiate the merge command: Type <Ctrl-F9> and select Merge. At the Primary file: prompt, type the name of your main document and press <enter>. At the Secondary file: prompt, type the name of your data file and press <enter>.

WordPerfect will display *Merging* on the screen while it combines the data from the secondary document with the text of the primary document to create a new document. The new merged file contains all the finished letters with the variable data in the appropriate places and the individual letters separated by page breaks. The primary and secondary files remain unchanged. Save, print, and edit this file as you choose.

Tip: If you do not want WordPerfect to put a page break after each merged letter (e.g., if you were creating a list of individuals from the secondary document), type <Shift-F9, 4> to add the {PAGE OFF} code to the end of your primary file before merging.