Question

Help with a Mail Merge

Asked by: greddin

I'm trying to do a mail merge from a spreadsheet where the names are listed like this:

John D. Smith
Karen W. Holly
Maria Wei Jeang
...

I would like the results to look like this in the final output of the mail merge:

jsmith
kholly
mjeang
...

Is it possible through the mail merge to concatenate the name with firstname initial and lastname. Omitting any middle name or initial? Then lowercasing the whole name?

Thank you

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Asked On
2009-11-05 at 16:13:30ID24876645
Tags

Microsoft Word 2003

Topic

Microsoft Word

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: peetjhPosted on 2009-11-05 at 16:17:27ID: 25755596

I'm not sure if mail merge can perform what you are looking for on it's own. I think your best bet may be use the text to columns feature in excel and then use a function like =Concatenate(mid(A1,1,1),A3) if your text was in columns 1 - 3.

 

by: peetjhPosted on 2009-11-05 at 16:18:05ID: 25755601

Then use the new value as your mail merge field.

 

by: greddinPosted on 2009-11-05 at 16:24:09ID: 25755629

peetjh, can you elaborate on the concatenate function briefly?

Assume that all my names (full names) are in a single A column

What would the function be to concatenate and put the new value in a B column?

Thanks!

 

by: peetjhPosted on 2009-11-05 at 18:24:55ID: 25756169

Assuming that the full name is in column A. Select column A then use the text to columns tool which you should be able to find, I believe it is under tools but I am working with 2007. It is there I may be wrong about where. When the text to columns dialog box opens you will want to select delimited and your delimiter on teh next screen should be space. Once your text to columns is complete lets say your new columns look like A1 John B1 A. C1 Doe then you can place the formula in B1 or D1.
=Concatenate(mid,A1,1,1),C1)

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