Word Mail Merge using data with one to many relationship

JCJG,

I will presume that the Student Info is in one table and the class info is in another?

You have to  create a query joining the two tables.
Then create a fi\unction that loops each class for every student and concatenates them to gether as one string, to be easilly inserted as a mail merge Filed.

I am heding for bed now.
Another expert may be willing to help you.
If not, post back, and I will see what I can do.

JeffCoachman

Mailmerge doesn't cater for one-to-many or hierarchical recordsets. I would put it high on the list of candidates for Word improvements.

There are a couple of techniques that do not use VBA.

If you have a limited number of subsidiary items, you can arrange your datasource so that each item has its own field.
e.g.

Forename, Surname, address1, address2, postcode, item1, item2, item3, item4,... itemN.

Another is to use Word Fields IF and MERGESEQ
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294686/

Here are four approaches that use VBA.

This one uses VBA (in Access, but it could be in Word)  to create an individual document per customer.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21090605/Merging-and-Access-Query.html

This talks about hooking into the  MailMergeAfterRecordMerge event to create a recordset for each customer's orders.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21478463/Great-new-way-to-Mail-merge-one-to-many-records-fails-at-final-hurdle.html

Here VBA is used to split a single-table merge output into individual tables.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21633674/Merge-rows-of-excel-condition.html

This one is a Directory type merge to a Word table. The datasource is a flat file or the result of a one-to-many query. The merge fields are set up in the Word table to receive the 'many' data.

The MailMergeBeforeRecordMerge event is used to look for a change of data in the One table. It then starts a new document Section, saves the data from the one side fields using Word VBA techniques, and carries on until the next change.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21669663/Need-help-with-complicated-mail-merge-with-Excel-spreadsheet.html

An aside...

GrahamSkan,

That last link to your previous question looks to be the sort of thing that's wanted here. Perhaps one day I'll learn to automate Word merges from Excel data - I'll have to study your code.

Patrick

Hello JCJG,

Jeff's suggestion of concatenating the results (perhaps using the good ol' Chr(13) & Chr(10) as the delimiter)
is the approach I would have taken if forced at gunpoint to do this with a MailMerge.  (And I am with Graham--
the ability to do a one-to-many detail merge would be very useful!)

However, I would encourage you to think about alternatives.  For myself, I would try to do this by creating an
Access report.  Access is built to handle a one-to-many relationship...

Regards,

Patrick

matthewspatrick:,

"perhaps using the good ol' Chr(13) & Chr(10) as the delimiter)"

Actually I was impliying a "Horizontal" concatenation:
(Something like this)
strClassList=strClassList & ", " me.ClassList...
...In a loop, as to accumulate the classes.
This is a common request I get in Access Reports (Horizontal Fields) to save vertical space on the report.

But now that you mention it, "stacking" them in a list, might be a better option...
;-)

Jeff

I appreciate all your input.  The Access option is definitely a good alternative.

I have tried to find a way to do it in Word and have come across the following link.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to make it work.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP100779671033.aspx

JCJG,

I can't see clearly how NEXTIF could be easily applied to this situation.
(One to many, related data)

JeffCoachman

Thanks for your help!

;-)