Merging your letters or postcards

Merging your letters or postcards with your selected clients:

(Refer to the client section on selecting clients). You must select the specific group of clients you want to merge with your form document. You must use the pick field list to select the type of field you will like to be printed on your letters or cards for each client.  

Printing with the selected clients will only print the amount of letters as the amount of clients selected.  

As mentioned before, a mail merge is an invaluable tool that, thanks to Unique's seamless integration of database and word processor, becomes easily usable by even the most novice user. Before explaining how to do a mail merge, a simple example may fully explain the potential of this function.

Suppose you have about 100 clients to whom you would like to send the same (form) letter. Of course, for each individual, you would like to put their address at the top of their letter, probably use their name throughout the letter, and maybe even use information that is specific to them in the letter as well. Of course, typing 100 letters, which, for the most part contain the same information, is not appealing to anyone. Mail merges allow you to design a document and place special field identifiers into the document, so that as each letter is created, the individual's personal information replaces the field identifiers. The following segment of a letter should illustrate this nicely:

<<Prefix>> <<First_Name>> <<Last_Name>>

<<Street_Address_1>>

<<Street_Address_2>>

<<City>> <<State/Province>> <<Zip/Postal_Code>>

<<Country>>

Dear <<Prefix>> <<Last_Name>>

We would like to thank you and <<Organization>> for your time and donations........

You can easily see that when a letter for each individual is created, the fields denoted with the <<Field_Here>> will be replaced by the individual's own information. Most commercial word processors provide mail merge capabilities, but in order to use them, you would have to export your desired data to an external database file, and then import this into the word processor to do the merge. Unique allow you to do all this with just a few clicks of the mouse button! No exporting, importing, formatting, etc. required. Simply run a filter on your records to retrieve exactly the ones you want and click the word processor button!

To actually insert a merge field, choose the Insert - Merge Field option to display a list of all fields available to you. These fields will be the basic fields supplied by Unique and any custom fields you may have defined. Click on one of these and it is inserted into your document at the current cursor position. Do not worry about the << and >>characters. They are simply used by Unique to denote a merge field, and will be removed when the mail merge is performed.

You will also notice one other option in the list of fields available for the merge. The <Standard Mailing Address> places all fields that make up a standard address, as seen in the sample letter above. This is designed to save you time when creating a new letter. To run the mail merge, choose the Insert - Do The Merge option.

Insert - Do The Merge

Executes the mail merge on the current document. Even if the document contains no merge fields, a mail merge will be created, although this will only result into multiple copies of the same document being created.

Before a merge can be performed, the current document must be saved. If the document is not saved, the merge will not continue. There are four options available to you when performing a merge:

1. Include all records displayed on the main screen in merge?

The processing done by the word processor is linked to the master list of individuals displayed on the main screen. If you choose yes for this option, then all individuals in this list will be used. If you choose No, then only the individual who is currently selected in the list will be used in the merge. The result of this latter operation will simply be to replace all merge fields with the information for that one particular individual.

2. Trim trailing blanks from all fields inserted into the document? (Make sure to use non-proportional fonts for columnar reports).

Each field stored in the database cannot exceed a certain length. For example, the First Name field cannot be more than 30 characters long. Say a first name only takes 6 characters in the database. This trim trailing blanks option allows you to remove the remaining 24 characters, before the value is placed in the document. This is generally the desired result, and thus this option has the Yes value set as the default. However, sometimes, you may wish to 'line' up the information in a merge so that you achieve a columnar look. In this case, you will not want to trim the blanks, in order for the resulting document to look better. If you are trying to achieve a columnar look, you must choose a non-proportional font to use in your document. What exactly is a non-proportional font? Take a look at the following text, typed in the familiar Times New Roman font:

Mmmmmmmmmm

Llllllllll

Both lines contain 10 characters, but they do not line up nicely. Therefore, if you tried using Times New Roman font to produce a columnar report, it will not appear as desired. This is because in Times New Roman, the width of each letter varies. A non-proportional font is one such that all letters are of equal width. The following has been typed in Courier New font, size 10pt:

Mmmmmmmmmm

Llllllllll

Notice how both lines are now of equal length? Running a merge to produce a columnar report with a non-proportional font should line the columns up nicely.

3. Create a page break after each individual has been merged?

Forces each new individual to start on a new page. This is the desired effect when letters are being generated, since you must obviously send a separate piece of paper to each individual. When producing columnar reports, you would most likely not want a new page after each individual, rather each new record to be placed directly underneath the preceding one.

4. Add this document as a 'Letter Sent' for each individual?

After creating and sending a letter to an individual, it is sometimes crucial to keep a copy of the letter sent to the individual for your files as well. Unique allow you to store this copy electronically, which helps reduce the amount of paper stored in your office, environment, etc. Choosing Yes for this option will store for each individual in the merge, a record of this letter being sent to them.

Once a mail merge has been created, the resulting document may not be modified. You may print out the document to have a physical copy of the letters you created, but changes are not permitted once a merge has been created. You should make the changes to the original form letter document. As well, any letter that is stored as a Letter Sent may not be modified, as this is supposed to be a record of what was actually sent to an individual. Changing the contents of a letter after it has been sent defeats the purpose of keeping a hard copy of it around. (This practice could even be illegal in some situations).