| Mail Merge With Variable Pictures Using Word 2013 Posted: 19 Jun 2014 05:11 PM PDT I have been experimenting and researching for several days to figure out how to do a Mail Merge that includes links to pictures that would be variables in a mail merge. Others said such a picture merge was not possible unless you converted our main document from a Word 2013 to a Word 97-2003 *.doc format. I figured there must be a way and there is. This feature is certainly temperamental and you must follow all steps exactly or it won't work. I hope others will find this useful--I'm no expert on this advanced type of merge, but at least it's a starting point for others. This was performed on a Windows 8.1 system--there was no choice for that in the System and Device dropdown for this post. Before beginning prepare an Excel file as your Data Source file that includes a column for pictures with each pictures *.jpg file name. You will insert that variable field in the merge. I use "Pic" in my example with simple *.jpg file names. I "think" if you have spaces in your *.jpg file names, you'll have problems. Keep the names short with no spaces. I'm preparing a merge document that will be manually e-mailed to parents who have a child enrolled in a preschool. The main document includes their child's name and their child's picture as merge fields for those variables. My screen shots have information blocked for privacy. To make this picture merge work in Word 2013, I used the INSERT tab, Text group, Quick Parts, Field, Include Picture to insert the field for the picture. Unfortunately, Word 2013 does not support the use of Finish & Merge, Send Email Messages, feature. So after the merge documents are completed, I had to e--mail each finished merge document manually.(Pardon the weird numbering in the steps below, but that's how steps pasted in from Word.) - Prepare a Main Document in advance with a link to the relevant Data Source file. I plan on e-mailing the finished merge documents one by one, so I always use a table structure to hold data and provide a framework for the consistent display of the merged files. I also use SHIFT+ENTER between paragraphs to avoid excessive space since many different e-mail clients outside of Microsoft will be receiving the merged document. (Consult a Word resource for steps—sorry, but those steps are too lengthy to discuss here.)
- Prepare the Excel data source file stored in your local My Data Sources folder; in this example, DataSourceFamilyPractice.xls; in this example, I need a column named Pic with the name of each *jpg picture file listed. I used the name of each child to parallel the Child column and keep this merge simple in terms of file names.
- Prepare a local folder with each child's picture; each file should have the same dimensions—in this example, I wanted square pictures with 1x1" dimension.
- Reconnect to your Data Source file: from the Start Mail Merge group, click Select Recipients, Use an Existing List, browse to your Excel Data Source file.
- Press FN+ALT+F9 to display field codes. I have to use FN on my computer to use my functions buttons. On your keyboard, you may just need to press ALT+F9.
- Click in the table cell where the picture field In Windows Explore, browse to the picture folder; right-click the desired picture; click Properties; from the Properties dialog, Security tab, drag right to left across the Object name and CTRL+C, Cancel. C:\Users\Arlene\Desktop\GPMPics\Denise.jpg
- From the INSERT tab, Text group, Quick Parts button, click Field; from the Field window, Field names pane, click Include Picture; in the Filename or URL box, paste the path to the picture; click OK.
- Press FN+ALT+F9 to display merge field codes.
- Carefully delete only Denise.jpg (or whatever file name is displaying now) from the filename and don't move the insertion point; the line should now look like this:
- With the insertion point where Denise.jpg used to be (just after the last \\ and just before the closing quotes) do this: From the MAILINGS tab, Write and Insert & Insert Fields group, click the Insert Merge Field button; click Pic. Your field should now look like this:
- Press FN+ALT+F9 (your computer may require only ALT+F9) to toggle field code display off; note that the picture displays the picture in the original path—in this case, Denise.jpg.
Note! If picture doesn't display properly, delete everything in Cell A3, save the main document file again, reconnect to data source, and repeat steps 10-1 - From the MAILINGS tab, Finish group, click the Finish & Merge button; click Edit Individual Documents; from the Merge to New Document dialog, click All, OK.
Note: Unfortunately, you cannot use Send Email Messages. It will send the message fine, but the pictures will not be unique. The same is true if you try to use the ACROBAT tab to merge—it creates four PDF files, but each one has the same picture. - Note that a new unnamed document opens with all four merged documents all displaying the same picture:
- To update the merged documents to display variable pictures, press CTRL+A to select all four pages in the new, unnamed document; press FN+F9 (your computer may require only F9) to display unique pictures.
Note: To speed things up, Word displays the same picture for each of the INCLUDEPICTURE fields. Thus, your merged document will appear as if it contains multiple instances of the same picture. This simply occurs because Word doesn't update the INCLUDEPICTURE field for each record it merges; once you press CTRL+A, FN+F9, unique pictures will display. - To send e-mail messages, select the table in the first page of the merged letters by pointing to the upper left-hand corner or the table and clicking the Table Move Handle; CTRL+C to copy; in Outlook, click in message area, CTRL+V to paste; enter the desired e-mail address in the To box in Outlook; add a subject line and send message; repeat until all messages have been sent.
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| Table of content using a G field Posted: 19 Jun 2014 05:08 PM PDT After using a document I've set up with the code { TOC \f G \c } to run a list of words I've coded with the G table identifier in another document.....all of a sudden today it won't work in Word 2013 (Windows 8.1). When I run it by using the F9 button, Word quits out completely. However we have an old machine with Word 2010 (Windows 7) and it still works fine. What's happened? Has there been an automated update overnight (which seems to happen constantly) that has effected this? |
| calculate elapsed time in word without macros? Posted: 19 Jun 2014 04:46 PM PDT I am creating a form in word that has a date field for 'starttime' and 'endtime' that display as hh:mm AM/PM. Is there any way to have the form automatically calculate the elapsed time without using a macro? (I'm creating a template and thus new documents lose the macro.) Not sure this is even possible but figured I could ask. Thanks! |
| Maximum number of characters permitted per drop-down item Posted: 19 Jun 2014 03:16 PM PDT Hi, I am preparing a form in which I wish to insert a number of drop-down form field options. However, I have noticed that the length of the text string I am able to write for any single drop-down item is limited to 50 characters (including spaces). Is there a way to increase the maximum number of characters per drop-down item? Thanks. |
| Office Docs won't open from network drive Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:51 PM PDT I can't open any office documents from a mapped network drive. I can however go to file explorer and go straight the server directory (\\servername\share) and open any document. As a workaround, I created a shortcut on the desktop that points to the share to allow the user to continue working. I have checked permission and added the path in Trust Center. I know it's not the computer because I have logged in with other users and everything works fine. I have also logged into other computer with the user that is having the problem and again everything works. I'm convinced it some setting I'm missing within the user profile on the computer. The computer is running Windows 8 with Office 365 and is current on updates for both. Any help is appreciated. |
| Windows 8.1 Windows Explorer crashes when trying to open DOCX file. Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:29 PM PDT Hi All! I have MS Office 2013 installed on an ASUS laptop running Windows 8.1. Recently, when I try to open a DOCX file by clicking on the file from the folder window, Windows Explorer crashes and restarts. A little window pops up apologizing for Windows Explorer crashing. I think Windows Explorer also crashes when trying to preview the file - i.e. I move the cursor over the file and it highlights the name, shortly there after Windows Explorer crashes. Doing the same things with a DOC files work just fine. I realize this is little to go on, but has anyone had a similar experience? John |
| After saving a word document as a PDF, PDF goes blank. Posted: 19 Jun 2014 12:26 PM PDT I have a word document that I inserted an image into. When I try to save the word document as a PDF, the PDF saves completely blank. Any ideas as to why and how I can fix this? I am using Windows 8.1 and Microsoft 365. Thank you. |
| files saved incorrectly Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:59 AM PDT I save many files + when I go back to re open them often get error msg - this file cannot be found. Or at other times a file will open in hyper text mode. Un-readable + original written file is gone exept in the hypertext . What it making it be saved this way.? I not a computer genious but know what i am doing generally. Hellp I need the files to open. |
| How to specify the From email address when doing a Word mail merge? Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:41 AM PDT I'm using both Outlook, Word, and Excel 2010. I have a list of contacts with names and emails in an excel file. I was using Word's mail merge in order to broadcast a large number of emails but I have Outlook configured with several email accounts and Word used the wrong email address as the From (i.e. sender) address for the mail merge broadcast. I even changed the default email account prior to the merge, although in hindsight perhaps I should have also rebooted outlook. Word's mail merge wizard doesn't have any apparent option for configuring which email to use as the sender. So my questions are: 1. How do you specify which email address sends the Word email mail merge broadcast? (assume BCC is off the table) 2. Fortunately, I changed my passwords to my other email accounts just prior to the merge as well. So they can't be sent but they will continuously attempt to send. I'm not entirely convinced that deleting them from the outbox alone will do the job of making certain that they won't be sent. What is the best way to purge these emails or do I pretty much have to delete and recreate the account? |
| Microsoft Office 2013 in resident memory Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:21 AM PDT I'm having problems with office 2013. I bought a new laptop with windows 8, i5 and 4 Gb of Ram. After buying it I upgraded it to windows 8.1. Then I bought office 2013. My work requires me to read about 100 documents per day in about 30 minutes and check them for grammar or information errors. But for each document I opened from the explorer, Office Word 2013 loads itself to memory again and again, making me lose about 5 secs per document with a sum of about 8 mins. I don't want to waste 8 mins of my 30 mins for such a needless task. If I leave any document open in the background, re-loading of word for each document is not happening but after changing and saving - closing the file the window focus changes to the background document forcing me to minimize it again and again, most of the time confusing me which document I had to close or save. This does not happen in my office for mac or previous version (not sure which) of ms office in my desktop. Is it possible to leave word as a resident memory application, so for each document it does not load and load again??? It really is non-sensical. I remember older office versions had some options to enable loading of documents faster leaving a task as resident program in memory... I just couldn't find it in 2013 version. |
| Word Table Formulas Posted: 19 Jun 2014 11:09 AM PDT Is there a way to multiply and divide two cells in a Word table? I realize this should probably be done in Excel but this is an unusual circumstance. Thanks. Word 2007 Windows 7 |
| Word 2010 vs. 2013 as default program Posted: 19 Jun 2014 10:46 AM PDT My issue is with Word 2010 vs. Word 2013. I prefer the look of 2010 and want that to be my default option for opening Word files. I have both on my computer. Do I really have to uninstall 2013 to get this to work? I set the preference to 2010 under "Open With". When I go back to open the file it is not in a recognizable format. Any thoughts? |
| Office 2013 - Cannot Open or Save Network or Shared Files Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:42 AM PDT This morning I noticed that I was unable to open any files on our network drive with Office 2013. This applies to all Office applications I've tested (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). When I attempt to open a file that is not locally stored, the splash screen comes up and sits for 3-5 seconds. It then disappears and immediately reappears, then the home screen opens (no document). Using "Open" within an Office program does the same thing. No errors appear. Next I opened a file stored locally, then tried to "Save" to a network location. The document immediately closed and brought me to the Word home screen. My network connection is solid. All other applications function. I've rebooted and reinstalled Office 2013 with no effect. Any help would be appreciated. Ryan |
| Footer height issue Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:41 AM PDT I don't know what happened to my beautifully formatted document! I deleted the i, ii, iii page nos. from the front matter. Suddenly, some of the page no are at different heights, namely page 4 and page 6, in Section 4. The "footer from bottom" is 0.3" on all 3 pages. The page no. looks to be a different distance from the footer marker. Beginning with Section 5, all seems well. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Going to single page view and merely pulling the footer down seemed to mess up subsequent pages. I"m thinking i could possibly delete and recreate Section 1-4 ? 
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| mail from word 2007 to outlook 2013 Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:22 AM PDT cannot send an e-mail from word 2007 via QAT to outlook 2013 |
| File opening error on password protected documents... not the password Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:15 AM PDT When I open a password protected file, I get an error that reads "Word experienced an error trying to ope the file." This ONLY happens with password protected documents but it happens with ALL password protected documents. It's not the file... it also happens on portable drives with files that will open on another computer. |
| Superscript and Subscript effects are both 'selected' in Word 2007 Posted: 19 Jun 2014 09:12 AM PDT In Word 2007, when creating a cross reference and subsequently applying the superscript effect to the text, I am seeing both the superscript and subscript boxes selected with a 'green' box. How does this happen? This is affecting the formatting when opened up in Word 2010/2013 as it's not applying either format to the text. See screenshot below for additional information: 
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| Office 2013 Styles Posted: 19 Jun 2014 08:13 AM PDT I've created a style in Word 2013 which I now want everyone in my office to be able to use when they use word. How can I share this across the network. There are only about 9 people who need it and the version of office varies from 2010 to 2013 I assume I can save this style, locate it on my PC copy to a certain place on the other users machine and boom it will be available?? Thanks for your help. |
| How do I get Word to stop opening NEW documents in Compatability mode? Posted: 19 Jun 2014 07:30 AM PDT I'm having trouble creating new documents. They open in compatability mode, thus making some functions inoperable. This is really confusing.......what am I doing wrong? |
| Unwanted styles brought into Template when graphics are copied and pasted Posted: 19 Jun 2014 06:55 AM PDT I created a template with specific styles, then protected it from formatting changes, including my specific styles. Most of the time, when I copy text from another document, it comes in as Normal style then I apply the specific styles I want. However, if a graphic is part of the section I copy and paste, it frequently contaminates my document with unwanted styles it somehow picks up from the old document and transfers. This happens even when I clear all the styles from the old document before copying and pasting. I'm guessing it has to do with pasting graphics in rather than inserting them. Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks! Susan |
| Enabling Editing and Macros Posted: 19 Jun 2014 05:33 AM PDT I've received files lately which say: " This document requires Microsoft Office, and can't be previewed online. *Please enable editing and macros to see this document* How do I enable them? thanks. |
| Bulk Update Quick Parts Posted: 19 Jun 2014 02:46 AM PDT We use quick parts to add header and footers to our documents. the user will choose the department then the office location and then choose between adding a CV header or a Letter Head this will then auto insert the details ( logo address phone number etc in the header and footer) we are moving office and therefore need to change a large amount of these quick parts ( auto inserts) is there a quick way to bulk update the details in these. currently I am having to go through each one individually and update. due to the number of departments and locations there are massive amounts of permutations Thanks Hiten - IPS Group |
| Office 2013 apps refusing to start up. Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:36 AM PDT Good day all. I recently started having issues with my office application. It first started with word. I could not edit doc or docx files created by other users but i could open word or any office files that I created , whenever i tried to open such files i had an error about there not being enough quota (this error was prompted by TuneUp Utilities 2014 which i had installed at the time). So i uninstalled TuneUp and restarted my computer and no office application opens. Whenever i try to open my any word file (mine included) I get an error saying "windows could not find the file specified" even though i clicking the said file. I uninstalled and re-installed office and still have the same error. Even when i try to open the .exe file directly from my program files. Could anyone help? |
| Delighted, but mystified and seeking to know: why did my links in Word docs update automatically when I changed the Path name of the Target Document? Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:31 AM PDT Hello, Community-Brain. I have a lot of documents in a set of folders and sub-folders. I often put a link in a Document when it refers to information that is in another document, so I don't have to go clicking through folders, and can just have the link open up the document I need to refer to. All familiar to many, I'm sure. I recently reorganized my folder system, moving some very big folders (with many levels of subfolders) to different locations. Hence, the path names of hundreds of documents changed. The path name for each doc went from something like this: C:/Users/Alan/Dropbox/C-Database/Office Docs/Letters/etc etc... ..........to something like: C:/Users/Bob/Dropbox/ALL/Office Docs/Letters/etc etc. So the end of each path stayed the same, but within the first few sections of the path name, each and every doc now had at least partially a new name. Normally, even one letter or space difference in a path name would mean that the link was now incorrect, and I expected that each and every link would have to be manually re-set one by one. It was going to be torture, but unavoidable. But I've found this surprising thing: FOR LINKS TO WORD DOCS, the links within the docs seem to have been updated to the new name without me doing anything. When I hover the cursor over the link to the word doc, there is the new path name, AND when I click on it the doc opens. I didn't do anything to reset it, but my Word doc or the link within it somehow new that the other documents name had changed. This doesn't work for the links to PDF's, so it seems to be an internal MS thing. Can someone explain how this works? I'm going to be banking on this feature in the future and would like to understand it's abilities and limitations better. Thanks. ddc |
| PDF to WORD Posted: 19 Jun 2014 01:04 AM PDT I WANT TO KNOW THAT.....IF TEXT FROM PDF IS COPIED AND PASTED TO WORD 2003 ...AND AFTER EDITING ALL MISTAKES AND CHANGING FORMAT ..... THEN CAN IT BE KNOWN THAT IT IS BEING COPIED-PASTED OR NOT..... |
| Office 2013 will not open !! 'Something went wrong. We couldn't start your program Posted: 19 Jun 2014 12:51 AM PDT I have unistalled it about 5 times now, ran the office repair and it still only temporarily works. It works for the lenght of time the computer is on, but stops working once the computer is shut down and restarted!! I opted to not link this to my microsoft account and i don't see why i should be forced to link it to a microsoft account. So i try to open any office software and it says: 'Something went wrong We couldn't start your program. Please try starting it again. If it won't start, try reparing Office from programs and feeature in the control panel. Blah Balah Blah..... Complete waste of time and i can' access my documents!! Why does the option to use a micrsoft product key not work??? How do you fix this? This happens for all office software! |
| Can you file Share as an attachment a Word or Excel 2013 file, without having the outlook client installed. I have home and student Posted: 18 Jun 2014 09:33 PM PDT I used this feature regularly on my work computer, but at home I continue to get an error indicating there is not an email program installed to preform this operation. It makes me think I need outlook installed to get this feature to work. |
| Ease of Access - Bounce Keys - Page down/Page up keys doesn't work in Word 2013 Posted: 18 Jun 2014 08:38 PM PDT In Windows 7 Ease of Access, there is an option called Bounce keys. Bounce keys does not seem to apply to page up, page down, arrow keys etc in Word in Office 2013. This is a huge problem for me. I tried the same keys in notepad, and they work correctly there. Please advise. |
| Create drop down list font colour in word 2010 Posted: 18 Jun 2014 07:44 PM PDT I'm using Word 2010. I have a drop down list. I wish to change the font colour in this drop down list. Is this possible and if so, how? |
| Unable to use Office in general Posted: 18 Jun 2014 04:28 PM PDT Hey Yall! I have been having this problem since I left school in May, and it kind of fixed itself. However, when I opened my office about 20 minutes ago it popped up with "activate windows". Now when I type in my email to activate it and press "continue" nothing happens. It technically freezes. Now if i press the exit button it just goes to activating your new windows account. However it will process forever. I am using OFFICE 365 University. Can anyone help me figure out how to get my office programs back and working.
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