I’m using Mail Merge to create a set of letters that are almost, but not quite, printed in triplicate. That document might look something like this:
We are sending you «Radish», «Phaser», and «Unicorn» as transaction number «Foo». Here are some «MoreDetails» assembled from «NumerousDifferentFields» with «Formatting» and «Rules» and other things that are «VeryAnnoying» to replicate by hand and keep consistent when editing.
Vendor Copy
[[[PAGE BREAK]]]
We are sending you «Radish», «Phaser», and «Unicorn» as transaction number «Foo». Here are some «MoreDetails» assembled from «NumerousDifferentFields» with «Formatting» and «Rules» and other things that are «VeryAnnoying» to replicate by hand and keep consistent when editing.
Customer Copy
[[[PAGE BREAK]]]
We are sending you «Radish», «Phaser» and «Unicorn» as transaction number «Foo». Here are some «MoreDetails» assembled from «NumerousDifferentFields» with «Formatting» and «Rules» and other things that are «VeryAnnoying» to replicate by hand and keep consistent when editing.
Received in good condition? (T) (F)
Date: ____ Signature: ______
Rinse, repeat, but you get the picture: a lot of the letter is replicated.
Apparently I’ve gotten a bit spoiled by user-defined functions in R, though, because I’d MUCH rather do something like this:
@@@@StartBlockA@@@@
We are sending you «Radish», «Phaser», and «Unicorn» as transaction number «Foo». Here are some «MoreDetails» assembled from «NumerousDifferentFields» with «Formatting» and «Rules» and other things that are «VeryAnnoying» to replicate by hand and keep consistent when editing.
@@@@EndBlockA@@@@Vendor Copy
[[[PAGE BREAK]]]
@@@@RepeatBlockA@@@@
Customer Copy
[[[PAGE BREAK]]]
@@@@RepeatBlockA@@@@
Received in good condition? (T) (F)
Date: ____ Signature: ______
Is there any way to do this in Word 2019’s Mail Merge? I won’t be surprised if the answer is “no, you lunatic, Word is not a freakin’ scripting language!”, but I still have to ask.
I also find myself wondering whether it could be done the other way, essentially using two data sources at once: the main one for each recipient/transaction, and a second one for the text at the bottom of the page. Iterate over them both, so that each row in Source 1 gets one document made for it per row in Source 2. Is that a thing? Not sure how it could be managed in Word without becoming very clunky very quickly, but then again I’m not much of a coder.
In case it’s relevant, this is Word Professional Plus 2019 version 1808, running on Windows 11.
(Also, sorry if this question has already been answered. I can’t seem to figure out search terms that will get me this answer instead of A) answers for the opposite issue, i.e. “Word is ignoring «Next Record» and repeating things from the spreadsheet” or B) instructions for getting Word to fill out a table in the document from data in the spreadsheet.)
