Home Publishing 99: How to Create and Print a Mail-Merge Project (194481)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Graphics Studio Greetings 99
  • Microsoft Graphics Studio Home Publishing 99

This article was previously published under Q194481

SUMMARY

In Home Publishing 99, you can merge names, addresses, and other custom information into text boxes in your paper project. This article describes how to create and print a mail-merge project.

NOTE: You cannot use the mail-merge feature in a banner, poster, or sticker project.

MORE INFORMATION

To create and print a mail-merge project, use the following methods in the order in which they are presented.

Creating A Mail-Merge List

To create a mail-merge list in Greetings 99 or Home Publishing 99, follow these steps:

  1. Open an existing paper project or create a new one.
  2. On the Mail Merge menu, click Create Address List.
  3. If you want to customize the order or content of the field names, click Customize, make the changes you want under Field Names, and then click OK.
  4. Under Enter Address Information, type an address in the appropriate boxes. Press the TAB key or use the mouse to move the text insertion point between boxes.
  5. If you want to add another address to the list, click New Entry, and then repeat steps 4-5 for each address you want to add. When you are finished adding addresses to the list, click Close.
  6. If you want to save the mail-merge list to a different folder, use the Save Mail Merge List As dialog box to browse to the folder you want.
  7. In the File Name box, type a name for the file, and then click Save.
To open a saved mail-merge list, follow these steps:

  1. On the Mail Merge menu, click Edit Address List.
  2. Click the mail-merge list file you want, and then click Open.

Adding Mail-Merge fields to Your Paper Project

To add mail-merge fields to your paper project, you must have a mail-merge list file. This file contains your list of names and addresses. You can use mail-merge list files in any of the following formats:

  • Greetings 99 or Home Publishing 99 mail-merge file
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Works database
  • Microsoft FoxPro
  • Microsoft Excel
  • DBase III, IV, or 5
  • Tab-delimited text
  • Comma-delimited text (CSV)
NOTE: You cannot use a Microsoft Word document as your data source.

To add mail-merge fields to your paper project, follow these steps:

  1. Open an existing paper project or create a new one.
  2. On the Mail Merge menu, click Open Mail-Merge List.
  3. Click "Merge information from a file I already have," click the mail-merge list file you want, and then click Open.
  4. Click to select a text box in your project where you want the information to merge. If you need to create a text box, click Add Something in the Main Options box, and then click A Text Box.
  5. In the Insert Fields dialog box, click the field you want to insert in the text box, and then click Insert. If you want to add other fields to the same text box, repeat this step for each field you want to add. You can also type spaces or punctuation marks between the fields in the text box.
  6. Repeat steps 4-5 for each text box you want to link to mail-merge information.
  7. In the Insert Fields dialog box, click Close.

Previewing and Printing a Merged Project

To preview or print a mail-merge project, follow these steps:

  1. Verify that you have properly configured your paper project to use information from a mail-merge list.
  2. On the Mail Merge menu, click Merge.
  3. If you want to see how different records from the mail-merge list appear in the project, click the Next (>>) and Previous (<<) buttons. When you are finished previewing the project, click Close.

    NOTE: If you want to preview the merged information in the project again, click Show Merge Results on the Mail Merge menu.
  4. To print the merged project, click Print on the File menu, and then follow the instructions on the screen to print the project.

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/3/2003
Keywords:kbhowto kbprint kbui KB194481