How do I "split" First & Last Names in MAIL MERGE when I want to address them by FIRST NAME? Tks in advance!

Question

Hi Folks:

I am confused with the Mail Merge options in WORD under Tools/Letters and the Mailings/Mail Merge

Wizard ...

The " Address Block" (Step 4 of the WORD DOC ) does NOT make it clear how to use the Addressing

Options for both "split" names and combined City/State/Zip addressing.

I need to take the addressing data from my Excel Spreadsheet and use just the Dear "John" part from

a cell within the columns that has all the "John Doe" names within it.

Also, I need to do the opposite when using a City, State and Zip from 3 different Cells in columns

when I need to use all 3 entities in ONE address box combined.

eg

John Doe
123 Main Street,
Anytown, California, 92122

Dear John:



Thanks folks - I would really appreciate this help.
Tenacity

Answer 1

In your data base in the excel spreadsheet you have to make separate columns for the first name and last name. Then you can select the first name field to insert in the "Dear John" part.



In step 4 of the wizard, select "more items" rather than address block, and you can choose which field you want to place in your letter.



for the combined entry, depending on your columns in the database, it might set up like:



"first" "last"

"street"

"city", "state" "zip"



good luck

Answer 2

You need to send this off to your IT person, so he can split the full name into FIRST NAME and LAST NAME columns. And then you need to have him concatenate the CITY, STATE and ZIP columns into one column.



You can try this for the concatenation routine yourself in Excel - just put this formula into a seprate cell :



=A1 & ", " & B1 & " " & C1



(use your correct cell numbers here)



A1 = City Cell

B1 = State Cell

C1 = Zip Cell



Good luck!

Answer 3

you have to name your fields in excel to match what you are asking....ie, first name, city, state....they all have to be in seperate columns..in mail merge instead of selecting the address block select more, it will allow you to add a field and in the order you want them. good luck!