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Rob HensonFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Creating Place Name cards for dinner table

I am in the throws of organising a group dinner. I have collated all of the attendants menu choices using Google Forms and now have the data in Google Sheets. From Google sheets I can copy into Excel if so required.

I am looking to produce Table Place Name Cards with each attendant name and their menu choice. Hoping to have a folded card in tent format with Name of attendant on front and their menu choices on the rear. I am planning on using a pre-perforated sheet of business cards so that I can print and easily separate the cards before then folding in half to create the tent.

I was hoping to use a Mail Merge into a suitable sized sheet of "cards" but the difficulty I have is getting the text so that it is the right way up on both sides; printing the name first it has to be printed upside down so that when the card is folded it is then the right way up in relation to the menu choices on the rear.

In Word I can create the table to match the business cards and use mail merge fields or in Excel, I can just create a sheet that mirrors the table for business cards in Word by adjusting column and row heights, with interval columns/rows as required and then do some lookup formulas to get the data.

So the question is whether Google Docs/Word or Google Sheets/Excel have an option to rotate text through 180 degrees.

I have found a way to do it in Excel (and can presumably do same in Sheets) by aligning the text vertically and rotating through 90 degrees for one side and -90 degrees for the other but that doesn't fit with the cards that I was planning on using so will end up being printed on standard card and then cut out using a sheet slicer/guillotine device; ie more work when I am trying to keep it simple. Slicer machine thing does have different attachments for folding/scoring and cutting so can do that reasonably accurately but would be much easier with pre-perforated.

Suggestions greatly appreciated!!
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Paul MacDonald
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Word will rotate text that's in a text box.  

If you have a Word template for your perforated busininess cards, just Insert -> Text box, type the person's name and move the text box into the appropriate location.  Insert -> Text box again, type the menu selection, then grab the green rotate handle, turn that text box upside down, and move the text box to the appropriate location.  You can then select both text boxes, copy them both with CTRL-C, paste them with CTRL-V, and then locate them for the second card.  Edit the new text boxes and repeat as necessary.  You may need/want to remove borders from the text boxes.
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Can I put Mail Merge fields in a text box?

Answered own question; no, I can put the merge field into the text box but get an error message when I try to show merge results.

I could put the names in manually and just the menu choices fed by mail merge but don't really want to do that for 68 guests.
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Martin Nguyen
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I had already thought of printing the sheet with only half of the contents, rotate the sheet and print again with the remaining contents but would be fiddly to make sure that the name entries then lined up (in the correct table cell) with the menu choices.

Menu choices in top left table cell would then be bottom right table cell for printing the name so the names would effectively be in reverse order which I don't know if Mail Merge can do that in reverse.

Currently looking at using text box but in Excel. Text box can have cell reference so would just be changing the row reference in each subsequent text box rather than typing or copy/pasting the whole name.
Just looking at Avery products and they have a design App online, might be what I need.
start with a blank page then print the name rather than printing the name then a blank page
David, sorry don't get what you're saying about a blank page.

Each page will have multiple entries, I think the sheet of cards that I have are 3 columns by 7 rows, 21 cards per sheet. Each card will then have a name and that person's meal choices, Starter, Main and Dessert. They will probably have to be abbreviated, eg "Soup" rather than "Seasonal Vegetable Soup" and "Beef" rather than "Roasted Beef with Yorkshire Pudding and seasonal vegetables" etc. because of the size of the cards.

This is to act as a reminder to each guest as to what they chose as well as a visual clue to the waiting staff as they deliver to each table.
@ Martin- I think I understand what you're suggesting and don't think I need to use a PDF interim stage.

I can create the equivalent to the mail merge label/card layout in Word but rotated on a Landscape page but 7 columns by 3 rows rather than 3 columns by 7 rows and then 90 degree rotate as required using the Text direction option.

I have tested and looks like I will have to make the sheet 14 columns by 3 rows with alternate columns being rotated opposite directions and then use the <<Next Record>> field in each second column.
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Got me thinking in the right direction (no pun intended), many thanks.
Ahh that would make things simpler. I suggested the PDF interim as a precaution in case your printer would not accept a page in landscape mode to print that way.
Thanks for sharing the updates, I'm learning quite a bit :)
precaution in case your printer would not accept a page in landscape mode to print that way.

Probably best to do a test print in case the printer gets confused, might have to force it into seeing the page is landscape with Printer settings.