rlneal@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (r.l.neal) (02/21/90)
I don't want to start another Word Perfect / MS-Word
war but to this novice Word Perfect user, it seems that
MS-Word handles mail-merges better. With Word Perfect,
the only way I can separate fields and records is with
^R and ^E (special characters). If I type the names
and addresses into a file, then it works great. But if I
want to use a database, Power-Base for example, and create
a mailmerge file, then I cannot create those special
characters to delimit the fields and records. Power-Base
only allows non-special characters as field and record
separaters.
MS-Word, on the other hand, allows you use commas or
semi-colons as field separators, and newline as record
separators. These are easily created by the database.
Word Perfect does have the nicety of allowing you to
create your mailmerge output in file, whereas MS-Word will
only output the mailmerge to a printer.
But my problem is, that my friend for whom I am trying to
set this up, has only Word Perfect. Is there a better way
in Word Perfect to do this?
Perhaps, I should use PFS-Write/PFS-File which is integrated.
You do not have to create mailmerge files, it just uses the
database. The trouble is, I don't like the reports created
by PFS-File (or Professional File).
Thanks in advance for any input you might have. I hope no
one misses my question in all the verbiage.
<standard disclaimer here>
Bob Neal @ AT&T IW 979-1090
att!ihlpe!rlneal
att!cbnewsd!rlnealsem@mbunix.mitre.org (McQueen) (02/22/90)
In article <13308@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> rlneal@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (r.l.neal) writes: >I don't want to start another Word Perfect / MS-Word >war but to this novice Word Perfect user, it seems that >MS-Word handles mail-merges better. With Word Perfect, >the only way I can separate fields and records is with >^R and ^E (special characters). If I type the names >and addresses into a file, then it works great. But if I >want to use a database, Power-Base for example, and create >a mailmerge file, then I cannot create those special >characters to delimit the fields and records. Power-Base >only allows non-special characters as field and record >separaters. The CONVERT program that comes with WP allows conversion of ASCII files (for example) to WP format. One of the options is to convert a file to WP Merge Secondary File format. You can specify the record and field delimiters. So, for example, if your database can produce an ASCII file with quote and comma delimiters ("field1","field2"), you shouldd be able to convert it to WP. Hope this helps. -- ---------------------------- sem@mbunix.mitre.org S. E. McQueen The MITRE Corporation 1259 Lake Plaze Dr. Colorado Springs, CO 80906 719-380-3325
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (02/22/90)
In article <13308@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> rlneal@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (r.l.neal) writes: > With Word Perfect, >the only way I can separate fields and records is with >^R and ^E (special characters). If I type the names >and addresses into a file, then it works great. But if I >want to use a database, Power-Base for example, and create >a mailmerge file, then I cannot create those special >characters to delimit the fields and records. Power-Base >only allows non-special characters as field and record >separaters. Either use the Convert program that comes with WP to change the delimiters or simply load the list into WP and do a global search-and-replace. WP will let you put most of its codes into the search or replacement strings, including the merge codes. If you do the same merge often, you can create a macro to fix up the list first. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
casey@well.sf.ca.us (Kathleen Creighton) (02/22/90)
You might not be able to enter the special characters in Power Base, but
you'll have to export your Power Base file as an ASCII file anyhow in
order to use it with WordPerfect, right? I know nothing about Power Base,
but this is what I do with Q&A files I export to make WordPerfect merge
files:
Q&A lets me make a template of fields for export, e.g.:
*Name*
*Address* *Suite/Floor*
*City*
*State*
*Zip*
So I add a "nonsense character" to what will be each ^R field and a different
"nonsense character" to what will be the ^E field:
*Name*@
*Address*@
*City*@
*State*@
*Zip*!
When the file is exported in ASCII, the fields look like this:
John Smith@
111 Market@
San Francisco@
CA@
94105!
I retrieve that ASCII file into WordPerfect and do a global search and
replace for @ with ^R and ! with ^E. It's very fast and very easy.
Even if you aren't able to export files this way, you can create a macro
in WordPerfect which will quickly add the field marks. The macro would
go to the end of the four lines in my example and add ^R, then to the end
of the fifth line and add ^E. This is also very easy. It just takes a few
minutes longer to do.
--
Kathleen Creighton {pacbell,hplabs,apple,ucbvax}!well!casey
San Francisco