Mail Merge & cell references

Hi @all,
I have several tables in numbers (09). On is for users input, the other for calculating values I need in a mail merge.
In the first table, the user types a date in this format "DD.MM.YYYY hh:mm" (german datetime). In the second table, there is only a mapping A{i}={first table} :: A{i}.
Now using the second table for mail merge in Pages, the results are strange. The merge-mapping is: "date" = {file}{table}{column name} (made with the inspector). But Pages takes the values for date in this order: first replacement is taken from column 1 line 1, second replacement is taken from column 2 line 2, third is taken from col 3 line 3 and so on... In effect, pages traverses the numbers table diagonally rather than vertically.
If I replace (in Numbers) the reference by direct values (not A{i}={first table} :: A{i} but A1 = "01.01.2009 09:00", A2 = "02.01.2009 08:30", and so on) everything works fine!
Is this a known bug in Numbers / Pages?

If you are interested to see merge at work, I uploaded a disk image with two examples into my idisk:
<http://idisk.me.com/koenigyvan-Public?view=web>
Download:
For_iWork:iWork '09:forNumbers09:forMerge.sparseimage.zip
You will see at work what is described in this thread.
Here is the bug report:
Your tracking number for this issue is Bug ID# 7254413. You may check status on this report via the 'My Originated Problems' tab.
+25-Sep-2009 09:21 PM Yvan KOENIG:+
Hello
+Attached is a demo of an oddity in the merge function in iWork '09.+
+Tested with the revision 2 under 10.4.11 but behave the same in other operating systems.+
+the pair 4merge behaves flawlessly. In the spreadsheet, the dateTime values are typed in the cells.+
+the two pairs 4merge2 and 4merge2- fail.+
+This is due to the fact that the field date contain dateTime objects resulting of formulas.+
+the pair 4merge3 use also calculated dates but this time, as I concatenate them to a nil string, the cells contain strings, not dateTime objects and this time the merge behaves flawlessly.+
+It seems that what we get with merge2 and merge2- resemble to what we call a bug. Isn't it ?+
+'4merge.dmg.zip' was successfully uploaded+
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 25 septembre 2009 21:11:33

Similar Messages

Mail Merge from Numbers picks up wrong cell

I have a Numbers document with several tables (each in a different Sheet). The document was created by exporting data from ScrumWorks Pro into an excel document and than opened in Numbers. The data I use in the mail merge is in one of the tables. To prep the table for the merge, I set the top row of the one table to be a header row and save as a numbers document. Some of the columns in the table reference other tables in the document (for example = PBI::Table 1::C2).
In Pages, I use three of the columns as merge fields (column B - "Task Title", column F - "Original Estimates (hours), & column I - "PBI Title"). Column I is the one with references to the different table in the same document.
When I do the mail merge, the first page correctly gets the first two column, but not the third. The second page of the mail merge picks up column E instead of column B, column I instead of column F, and again not the third merge field. The third page of the mail merge picks up column N instead of column B, column H instead of column F, and again not the third merge field ... etc.
I am guessing that it wants/needs further modifications to the Numbers document to prepare it for the merge, but I am not sure what. Anyone have any ideas?

Not surprised at all.
You wrote that the column F contains hours values.
The truth is that it contain date_time values displaying only the time component.
The Mail merge hate this kind of data.
There is a simple workaround. Insert a new column just after column F.
In the new cell G2, insert the formula =""&F2
Apply Fill Down
In the Pages document, repose the field supposed to extract values from column F by one defined to extract from he new column G.
I'm quite sure that the merge feature will behave as you wish.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 28 mai 2011 21:31:37
iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.7
Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community
To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

IWork 09 Pages Mail Merge Reference 2 Tables

I am using Pages 09 and creating a mail merge file from tables in Numbers I want to merge data from several different tables in the numbers into one document in Pages has anyone been able to do this?
Brenda

Hi Brenda,
Chapter 11 of the Pages '09 User Guide, , starts on p. 243 of the guide. This excerpt from p. 245 describes adding merge fields referencing a Numbers table:
To insert merge data for one or more contacts using a Numbers document:
1 Choose Edit > Mail Merge, and then click Numbers Document.
2 Choose a Numbers document in the window that appears, and click Open.
3 For each merge field, click the Target Name pop-up menu in the Merge window, and
select a target.
4 Print the document.
5 To reuse the document with other Numbers data, select another Numbers document,
and repeat steps 1 through 4.
(emphasis added)
My reading of this, with particular attention to the bolded parts, is that the merge data can come only from a single Table on a single Numbers document. Wording of references to Numbers through the rest of the chapter is consistent with that interpretation.
The Pages '09 User Guide may be downloaded through the Help menu in Pages.
Regards,
Barry

What WordStar 3.01 can do in Mail Merge that Pages '09 can't.

I have a Bento database. I want to print contra dances from it on 3x5 index cards. I can save the database as a Numbers worksheet with all the data I want on it. I SHOULD be able to use the fields from that Numbers file to create a Pages document that merges, using that data, to print on the index cards.
Meanwhile, Apple apparently thinks that addresses are the only kind of data anybody could ever want to merge in a document. This is a stupid limit. Your programmers are unnecessarily standing between me and a reasonable expectation of what your software ought to do.
I could do this in WordStar in the mid 1980s on a Commodore 128 running CP/M. I could do it in WordPerfect under DOS. I can do it in Word in Windows, and I HATE Windows.
Why can't I do it in Pages on my Mac?

Sarris2 wrote:
I hacked my way to the answer before reading your good advice. I see three problems here:
1. As you say, the tutorial materials are vague and fail to explain how the feature works or how to get to the feature.
Agreed
2. The "Edit:Merge" menu option is greyed out until you add a Merge Field, so you can't connect to a Numbers data source until AFTER you have chosen your first Merge field, which presumes you are using the address book, so the first field has to be an Address Book field even if the eventual document doesn't have any Address Book fields in it.
No.
Have you tried my instructions?
All you need is a Numbers spreadsheet with the appropriate headers in it. Link to that and then you can merge to those revealed headers.
3. There is apparently a "magic number" bug in Mail Merge in Pages. Since I couldn't connect to a data source until after inserting the first Address Book field and I was working with bad advice from the tutorial, I inserted 14 fields, creating my own cross-reference table in a separate document to tell me which Address Book Field to map each Numbers file Merge Field to.
Again, why are you insisting on barking up the wrong tree, and arguing with the koalas that they aren't pandas?
When I actually got around to mapping the fields, I hit the magic number 13 and instead of seeing Numbers fields to map to, I saw Address Book fields again. I tried deleting the field and creating a new one and got a repeat of the Edit:Merge window now pointing to the Address Book. When I once again pointed it to the Numbers file, all the fields I had mapped changed their names to the actual Numbers fields, and when I went to create the new field, the list of choices were from the Numbers file instead of the Address Book.
Haven't a clue what this is supposed to mean, and why you are still futzing about in Address Book.
So, I got what I wanted, though I wasted a lot of time unnecessarily using Address Book fields and remapping them to the Numbers fields, and I'm still hampered by the lack of Conditional Merge Fields. From Bento, I have a field named "Becket" that has either a "0" or a "1". I'd like to type the word "Becket" on the card if it is "1" and not type anything if it is "0". I could do that in Wordstar, etc.
Why?
It seems that in Pages, I have to tweak the data itself, wrestling with Numbers to replace all "1"s in that column with "Becket" and replace all the "0"s with empty cells. It's a lot more of a tedious process in Numbers than it would be if I just had a conditional Merge field.
Can't follow what this has to do with a simple merge which is where you started.
Peter

New to Pages, mail merge help needed

OK, I tried to get some help a couple of days ago in the Numbers discussion pages but apparently the invoice I'm trying to create won't work. (At least, no one has replied to the other post.)
So I've given up on trying to create a usable Invoice in Numbers ('09) for my friend's graphic design business and am now trying to use the Invoice template in Pages ('09) instead.
I've managed to insert Mail Merge fields in the document and link them to a stand-alone Numbers document containing the client addresses. However, when we open the template to try and create a new invoice, the Pages>Edit>Mail Merge option only allows us to select the table containing the addresses, not individual addresses. The result is that Pages only imports the first person in from our database (the Numbers table).
If anyone out there can offer help - even if it's just to say "forget it, you're better off writing things out by hand" - I'd really appreciate it.
Another issue for the Invoice I'm trying to do in Pages is use the Inspector to create a Pop-up cell. Apparently, that is only an option in Numbers. But if I can get some help on the first issue, I figure something else out.
I won't bother posting a screenshot or anything unless someone really needs it. (Maybe that's why I didn't get help before...)

Thank you for the reply - the video was very helpful!
AnaMusic wrote:
Perhaps this > http://macmost.com/using-mail-merge-in-pages.html
can offer some assistance on Mail Merge...
I can now get the Mail Merge to pull up separate pages in a document for everyone on the list.
I did some more checking on the MacMost site, but didn't find an answer for the next part of my problem:
Being able to select different people from the Numbers table before completing the Mail Merge. Since we haven't yet entered her full client list into the database, I can simply delete an invoice that doesn't apply from the resulting mail merged document. My worry is in having to do that once we have her full client list (about 200 names so far) in that database.
I've tried to see if it made sense to break the list into separate groupings, but even an alphabetical grouping (A-G, H--N, etc.) seems odd. I know I was able to make selections when I used Microsoft Word mail merge - do you know if Pages has something similar? (I know, Pages isn't meant to be an Apple clone of Word, but it's hard to know if I'm just looking in the wrong place on the forums and in the manuals/user guides.)
Thank you again!

[CS3/CS4 JS] How can you get the associatedXMLElement of a merged cell in a table?

Hi!
Inserting a table, and autotagging it, I get a table with a number of cell elements in the XML Structure.
Selecting an item in the table, I can find the associated XML by the following line of code:
app.selection[0].associatedXMLElement
My problems begin when cells are merged. Then the associatedXMLElement for the cell returns null.
How can I find the associatedXMLElement for a merged cell?
Using the getElements makes no difference.
app.selection[0].getElements()[0].associatedXMLElement
(returns null)
In the XML structure I can see that the merged cell is still associated to an XML Element, which becomes underlined and also referrs back to the cell, selecting it when double clicking the XML Element link in the structure.
Is there no way to get to the xml element of a merged cell?
I have tested in CS3 and CS4 as well, and they act in the same way.
I also found a similar, unanswered, question from Anne-Laure Jallon in the "With CS3, some things have changed" ( http://forums.adobe.com/message/1105813#1105813 ):
Hello,
I'm working with VBscript.
Is there a difference between cell.associatedXmlElement in CS2 and CS3?
All my cells in CS2 had an associatedXmlElement.
In CS3, my table has an associatedXmlElement, but all its cells don't (The value is Nothing)
Is this a bug? Is it linked with XML evolution?   Thanks Anne Laure
Adding some more info:
I made a test, by selecting the XMLElement in the structure, and from that object finding the cell, and finding back to the assiciatedXMLElement:
app.selection[0].getElements()[0].cells[0].associatedXMLElement
Result: [object XMLElement]
So that kind of "chain" works.
But with the merged cell as only reference, I can't find its associatedXMLElement. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Best regards,
Andreas Jansson
Message was edited by: Andreas Jansson

In my opinion, locate a cell according to his content is not so effortable. What happens if contents of more than two cells are equals?
I take xml elements of associated xml element of table and put them into an array.
This array contains associated xml elements of every cell ordered by cell positions into table.
Now, locate associated xml element of a cell based on its array position (index) is more reliable:
var myCell_cell = app.selection[0];
var myElement = myCell.associateXMLElement
if (!myElement || !myElement.isValid) {
     var table = myCell.parent;
     var xml_tab = table.associatedXMLElement;
     var xml_cells_arr = xml_tab.xmlElements.everyItem().getElements();
     var idx = myCell.index;
     myElement = xml_cells_arr[idx];
Alex ;-)

Difficulty cross-referencing PDF created from MS Word Mail Merge

Hello!
I'm using MS Word Mail Merge to create PDF documents with Adobe Acrobat 9 (Merge to Adobe PDF ribbon). Adobe allows me to specify the file name to use, which Adobe uses for the first portion of the file name, but the remaining is up to Adobe and varies depending on the total number of documents.
The help shows as: "The PDF will be named using this text plus a series of numbers. For example, if you type JulyLetter in the Specify PDF File Name box, the mail-merged PDFs might appear as JulyLetter_0000123, JulyLetter_0000124, July Letter_0000125, and so forth."
If the numbering was sequential, there wouldn't be a problem. However, if the number of records exceeds 50 documents, the convention changes at intervals of 50 and it makes it difficult to cross-reference without opening the document.
As an example, if there are a total of 67 documents, you get the following results:
Record 15 is named JulyLetter_15015.pdf. (meaning range 1-50, record 15)
Record 20 is named JulyLetter_15020.pdf (meaning range 1-50, record 20)
Record 56 is named JulyLetter_51676.pdf (meaning range 51-67, record 6)
Record 66 is named JulyLetter_516716.pdf (meaning range 51-67, record 16)
The breaks are at intervals of 50 records, meaning that if there were 230 records to print, record 143 would be JulyLetter_10115043.pdf, record 180 would be JulyLetter_15120030.pdf.
Does anyone know where the naming or breaks are controlled within Adobe to just keep it sequential or if there is possibly a cross reference file created that may assist with cataloging?
Thanks

In each of the successive versions of Acrobat to the version you have, improvements have been made in converting a PDF to Word format. Acrobat X and the version about to come out, Acrobat XI, do the best job. I can't guarantee that the results would be an improvement in your case, but I have a hunch they would.

Mail merge with MS Word

I currently have an on-premise SQL server which I intend to migrate to Azure SQL database. We have a number of Word (2013) documents which pull data from the on-premise server and use for mail merge runs. However, I cannot seem to create a DataSource connection
to perform the same operation from Azure SQL database. I have tried SQL Native Client 11.0 and various others - whilst the test connection performs correctly, no data is pulled from the table or view.

Hi Graham,
Did you receive any error message ? some thing like 40552 : The session has been
terminated because of excessive transaction log space usage. etc., Please share if any to isolate the issue.
Regards,
Shirisha Paderu
Disclaimer : This response contains a reference to a third party World Wide Web site. Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. Microsoft does not control these sites and has not tested any software or
information found on these sites; therefore, Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. There are inherent dangers in the use of any software found on the Internet, and
Microsoft cautions you to make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any software from the Internet.

Mail merge ('09) is giving spurious results

I am trying to do what should have been a fairly simple mail merge function, but it is producing weird results. I am doing date calculations in Numbers, and using that for producing a document with different date elements (all are in the spreadsheet). The formulas are working correctly, and the cells contain the correct information, but when I do the mail merge, Pages picks up data from different cells. I can even change the target cells, and it still picks up the same data.
Here is a portion of the Numbers data.
The first entry (B2) is entered as a date. The rest are all calculated using date functions. The pattern is: Date, Month Name, Day Date. Then repeat for the next day, etc.
And, here is what it produced, with the target cell name preceding the merged data. The text in blue worked correctly. Once I created a text box, and put merge fields inside it, though, it started falling apart. As you can see, the data did not match the cell data associated with the column name. I then tried using the same data outside of the text box, and it was again spurious. It seems that using a text box messes it up. What I am using this on is very graphically oriented, and I hate to think of the challenge of not using text boxes and lining up graphic elements with underlying text… ugh….
After spending a full day on this simple project, I gave up and went to Word. I exported my Numbers data as an Excel spreadsheet, and it merged beautifully on a test run. So, I reformatted all my documents (with a lot of images, which is part of why I wanted to use Pages). After spending another day getting it laid out in Word, I did the final merge. Success! It looked beautiful. I cut the documents to the size I needed, only to find out it had resized them! Back to Pages, which I prefer. I can't get past the spurious results. I've tried reloading Pages and the documents, but it doesn't work. I have a number of templates in Pages that I need to use for this function, and I hate to think of finding a different program and redoing all of them.
I am using iWork 09. My Pages is version 4.3, and my OS is 10.7.5.
Any ideas?

Oh, one other quirky thing happened. In the text box I entered "mon1" for the starting date. When I highlighted it, and added it as a Merge Field, it immediately changed the text to "mo1n". I tried to correct it, but it changed it every time. I have had that happen a number of times with other merge fields. The "n" shows up after the date in the merged document, suggesting that the Merge Field was "mo1". However, in my list of Merge Fields, it shows as "mon1".

Change data source - mail merge

I have a mail merge document which was migrated to a new server. Now every time when I run the mail merge document it tells me "Error has occurred: The Microsoft Access database could not find the object ' '. Make sure the object exists and
that you spell its name and the p". In the error it points to the old path on the server. When I click OK the data link properties window pops up. I change the data source to point to the path of the new server and the document opens up. The only problem is
that this does not save. I have to specify the new path to the server everytime. How do I set this permanently?

1. Do you have the same problem if you try to connect a completely new Word document to the data source? If so, probably something wrong with the Excel file - if you can reconstruct it, or even create a test file with the same sheet name and column names,
that may show that the file is/was at fault.
2. For the default OLE DB connection type, the SQL message is the correct one - the SQL does not reference the workbook path or name - that comes from the file name or connection string which is not displayed in that dialog box.
3. When you see the SQL warning and click Yes, do you then see a dialog box which provides the workbook path/name. Does that file exist? Is it the one you expect? If yes, again, I would suspect the Excel file. If no, the wrong data source is "sticking".
That will happen if the previous data source has not been properly disconnected - e.g. If you proceed from the dialog I mention, then choose the option to find the data source in the next or subsequent dialog, it does then appear that you have corrected
the problem, but in fact Word "reverts" to the previous source the next time you open. Typically clicking Yes in the SQL dialog box should disconnect the old data source, but I would at least "make sure" by e.g. setting the mail merge main
document type to Normal Word Document in the mailings tab.
Peter Jamieson

Word 2010 Mail Merge Missing Data

I have a large Excel data file:
1725 records, 31 columns, 1.74MB total size.
Other data:
Windows 7 (64 bit)
Word/Excel 2010 Version: 14.0.7116.5000 (32-bit)
I am running a standard mail merge on a filtered subset of the data (112 records). At least one of the merge fields is RANDOMLY missing from the merge document. This is clearly evident because this is a field that is populated for EVERY record. I don't believe
that I have every seen this behavior before.
Can someone please direct me to the cause of this or a work-around?

There are numerous possible reasons. The most likely is that the column concerned has missed data types (e.g. numbers plus text and/or dates). Some explanation:
By default, Word (2002 & later) uses the OLE DB provider to get merge data from an Excel workbook. The basic problem with using the OLE DB provider is that it's designed to return data in a way that is compatible with Access and other relational database
packages. Access requires a specific data type for each field, and every value in that field must have only that data type. In Excel, however, cells in a column (field) can have different data types. When the OLE DB provider gets data from an Excel column
with mixed data types, it has to determine the data type for each column. The first 8 records are used for that (the 8 can be changed in the Windows Registry, but it’s not advisable to do so). Records that don’t conform to the determined data type are liable
to not be handled correctly. To complicate matters, for historical reasons, there are two text data types: "text" (up to 255 characters) and "memo" (can be longer than that).
Some common mailmerge issues arising out of this include:
• Numbers but not text or dates being output for some records; and
• Text data being truncated at 255 characters.
Ideally, one would ensure each field has only one data type. That way, the problem wouldn't arise.
Workarounds include:
• Inserting a dummy first record containing data in the format that is not being output correctly; or
• Reordering the data so the first record has content in the format that is not otherwise being output correctly.
Thus, if numbers appear but text and/or dates don’t, ensure the first record for that field has text or a date. Similarly, if text over 255 characters is being truncated, ensure the first record for that field contains more than 255 characters.
Cheers
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]

Merge cell in DOI ?

Hi
I want to merge cell in DOI (Desktop Office Intergration)
I know how can I do it in OLE , but I have no imformation in DOI
I checked SAPRDEMO_SPREADSHEET_INTERFACE but there is no merging.
is there anybody can give me some example about this.

hi....
this one is for merging cell in a range one after another in a mail merge templete
call method MAIL_MERGE->MERGE_RANGE
EXPORTING
      first        = (here you give first data record)
      last        = (here you give last data record)
      no_flush = no_flush
IMPORTING
      retcode = retcode
      error     = error.
regards

How to view cell reference not its text name?

One of my spreadsheets in Numbers 3.0.1 is displaying cell text descriptions when I view formulas. Somewhere there must be an option to view the alpha-numeric cell reference ID's, re: A1, A2 - etc. But, I can't find where it's hiding. Can someone please tell me where to look? Thanks.

The last reply was a while back, but since this was useful to me, and I tend to agree with SGIII about not being able to turn it off, here's what I did for my iPhone (but what a pain to have to deal with something like this.)
It's easier to do this on the Mac and then mail it out for the iPhone (mine is 5s with latest 7.) The names that will be used for cell names in formulae are the nearest row header to the left and nearest column header upwards.
Insert a new header row after any text headers you have, if any, and leave the just created one blank and hide it. Do the same for the column headers. In my case, I didn't have any row text headers so I just have one blank, hidden header. I did have column headers so I added a extra blank, hidden header beneath it.
Now, all that voluminous and, in my opinion, confusing cell naming business in formulae goes away and the actual A1-type references will appear.

Mail merge functionality

Hi I am trying to import an Excel spreadsheet with highlighted columns I have assigned into a working PDF document with the fields assigned so that it pulls similar to a mail merge in Microsoft Word.
Your copy and paste ability on the FormCentral community form doesn't work? You might want to fix that as well. Back to my issue:
Here is the PDF with the fields I am using as an example:
Excel:
Can't find the FDF option under the 'Save As', tried XML, tried .TXT file save as, CSV, etc. Doesn't import correctly with TXT file as Adobe suggests. Please advise as to how to fix this issue.:

How does one go about saving as an FDF file that Adobe suggests? I want to pull the info from the table fields I have created in Excel to show up or populate in the PDF form pretty much like a mail merge you can do with Microsoft. It pulls part of the fields for a TXT file if I save it as that, but, does only one of the people I have have assigned and not the others. For example, pulls Mary (FIRST_NAME table), but, doesn't pull LAST_NAME for my example if you reference the second image I have included in this inquiry. So it should pull 'Clark' for LAST_NAME, but doesn't. Also, only one page it populates using the import function for a .TXT file. I have three rows of content and only pulls the middle 'dummy' Mary information and it's not complete even though I assigned the text fields to be parallel. So, if the TXT functionality doesn't work, where or how do I go about saving as a FDF file since I don't have this option in EXCEL, but, that's what Adobe is "screaming" for. I don't need a workflow, just want to pull the fields from the table names I have setup in Excel.

"Mail" Merge for data labels

I wish to use an Avery template to define the layout of a page and than populate the cells with data merged in from Numbers.
I can get the Avery template to work fine
I can get the first cell to populate with the first row of my Numbers Document/Table.
But the Mail Merge feature of Pages wants to make each row of the Numbers Table a different page instead of the next cell of the template.
How do I tell Pages to increment the row it is merging from from cell to cell instead of from page to page?

Richard,
That's the only way Pages will operate in a Merge, one record of the Numbers table per Section of the Pages document. It's pretty easy to use Find/Replace to delete all the Section Breaks and collapse the Pages document to one Section.
I don't know which Avery template you are using, so you're on your own on matching the layouts. Here's the basic plan:
Set the Pages document to have as many columns in the text layer as there are columns of labels.
Insert a Text Box and set the borders to None. Make sure the Text Box is Inline.
Put your merge field in the Text Box.
Set up the Merge link to the Numbers doc.
Size the Text Box to match the label size.
Edit > Mail Merge
Find/Replace Advanced. Find Section Break, Replace with nothing.
Replace All.
Now you may have to adjust margins and text box size to get it perfect.
Here are screen shots of the components:
Jerry

Mail Merge & cell references

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