Mail merge grouping help

**Mikebyrne** · 12-10-2009, 11:02 AM

I currently have a set of names and addresses that I want to send christmas cards too

At present I have every member of the household listed but I was wondering if it was posibble to group each household instead of sending the card to everyone.

My table looks like this:

Callan, Cxxxy, Wayside, Ardrxxxgh, Athy, Co.Kilare, The Callan Family
Callan, Lxxm, Wayside, Ardxxxgh, Athy, Co.Kilare, The Callan Family
Callan , Mxxxt, Wayside, Ardxxxgh, Athy, Co.Kilare,The Callan Family

I'd probably need to group by "The Callan Family" colum where The address column "Wayside" is equal

Just not sure how to do that in mail merge

Any help would be great

**teylyn** · 12-10-2009, 06:34 PM

Hi,

I'm not too sure that could be done in Mail Merge. It might be easier to manipulate the table with the source data. Is the source table in Excel? If so, post a data sample with dummy names and we'll probably find a way to remove duplicate family entries.

hth

**Mikebyrne** · 12-10-2009, 07:41 PM

I've attached a sample as requested

**teylyn** · 12-10-2009, 09:12 PM

Hi, had a little think and messed around with advanced filter to no avail, when it hit me:

include a header in Row 1
insert a new column H at the end, label "include"
put this formula in H2 and copy down

=IF(CONCATENATE(A2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2)=CONCATENATE(A1,C1,D1,E1,F1,G1),"","yes")

this will concatenate all the columns except for the first name and compare it with the one above. If it is different from the info one row above, it will print a "yes" in the include column.
The prerequisite for this to work is that you have it all nicely sorted in the order

column A ascending, then column C ascending.

Make sure to ignore column B as a secondary sort order, so the families sit together nicely.

Now in Word, you can specify to mail merge only records with a "yes" in column "include". To do that
- click Edit recipient list in step 3 of the mail merge wizard
- scroll right till you see the inclulde column
- click the drop-down in the include column and select Yes
- click OK

continue with the merge ...

will that work for you?

see attached

**Mikebyrne** · 12-11-2009, 11:43 AM

That worked!!

I have one more problem, Is it possible to Concatonate the address again but if there are different surnames at the address put a "YES" in the column

For Example:

Davis, Elth, 18 Bar Bi,Assy, Co.Kissre,The Davis Family
O'Rourke, Elih, 18 Bar Bi, Assy,Co.Kissare, The O'Rourke Family

I'd like the column I'm inserting the formula into to say YES for these two

**teylyn** · 12-11-2009, 10:50 PM

Well, have a look at the concatenate formula and see how easy it is to combine the columns you need for a comparison. Then just sort your data and amend the concatenate formula to suit your needs.