Thanks to Word’s mail merge fields, you can automate the process of producing different letters based on criteria you specify. This example shows how it works.

When you need to send two or more different letters to your clients based on a value in a field in the client database, you don’t need to compile two separate mailing lists. Using the If… Then…Else rule with the INCLUDETEXT field, you can process both letters at once. For example, say you have saved two documents, one containing the body of the letter for clients located in Missouri and a second containing the body of the letter for clients located in Illinois. To create one mailing that will send the appropriate letter to each client, follow these steps:

1. Click below the greeting, where you want to insert the body of your letter.

1. Click the drop-down arrow of the Insert Word Field button in the Mail Merge toolbar. (In Word 2007, click Rules in the Write & Insert Fields group of the Mailings tab.)

1. Click If…Then…Else.

1. Click the Field Name box drop-down arrow and select State (Figure A).

Figure A

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1. Click in the Comparison box and select Equal To.

1. Click in the Compare To box and type MO.

1. Click in the Insert This Text box and type This is the text for MO.

1. In the Otherwise Insert This Text box, type This is the text for IL.

1. Click OK.

1. Right-click the field in the document and select Toggle Field Codes to display all the field codes (Figure B).

Figure B

1. Select the following text inside the quotes: This is the text for MO. (Do not select the quotes.)

1. Go to Insert | Field. (In Word 2007, click Quick Parts in the Text Group of the Insert tab.)

1. Click Field.

1. Under Field Names, select IncludeText (Figure C).

Figure C

1. Click in the Filename Or URL box and type the full pathname for the file containing the body of the letter for Missouri clients.

1. Click OK.

1. Right-click the field and select Toggle Field Codes.

1. Select the following text inside the quotes: This is the text for IL. (Again, do not select the quotes.)

1. Repeat steps 13 through 15.

1. Click in the Filename Or URL box and type the full pathname for the file containing the body of the letter for the Illinois clients.

1. Click OK.

When you right-click the field and toggle the field codes, your rule should look like the one in Figure D, substituting your filenames for each of the letters. When you run the mail merge, Word will print the letter that pertains to the value of the State field in each client record. (If you prefer to enter the field codes entirely from the keyboard, be sure to use Ctrl + F9 to enter the brackets.)

Figure D

Note that you can use the If …Then… Else rule with INCLUDETEXT to print out different letters for any number of values in the field. Simply create a different If…Then…Else rule for each value, with INCLUDETEXT as the first variable and blank (nothing between the quotes) for the second variable.

Columns are easy to create in Word — usually. Newspaper columns flow from top to bottom and then snake around to the top and down to the bottom again. In Word, you just click a button and like magic, you have newspaper columns. On the other hand, parallel columns are a bit more troublesome. These columns are read left to right. You can use tabs, but the guesswork makes these columns awkward to work with. Moving or deleting a column is difficult at best. Displaying the tab characters make the chore easier, but you still have to delete or move items one by one.

Tina Norris Fields, a Michigan colleague, recently shared an easy way to create parallel columns: Use a table and then inhibit the borders. Now, that’s magic!

Use any method you like to create the table. I usually enter the first few rows and then let Word create the table based on the existing items. If you know the dimensions, you can create the table first and then enter data. It doesn’t really matter. Use the AutoFit format and let Word adjust the table as you enter the columnar data.

When you’re done, turn off the table’s borders as follows:

Word will gray out the borders on screen. However, Word won’t print the borders, which you can easily confirm by viewing the document in Print Preview.

Using the table structure allows you to easily move or even delete parallel columns.

cialis 100 mg class=”entry” align=”justify”>If you want to display both text and date data in one cell, you’ll need to include an extra formatting step. See how to use the TEXT function to get the desired results.

Excel does not normally let you combine text and dates together in the same cell. For example, suppose you have entered the formulas shown in Figure A.

Figure A

Figure B shows the results.

Figure B

While the value in A2 displayed correctly, the value in A1 did not. This is because Excel displays the actual date data entered into the cell until it’s formatted. Thus, to show the data in A1 as a true date, we need add the TEXT function to change the format to text. When we replace the formula in B1 with

="Today is"&" "&TEXT(A1,"MM/DD/YYYY")

we get the results shown in Figure C.

Figure C

To open a Word file, you probably click the Open button or choose Open from the File menu. Or, you might be a bit more savvy and use the Favorites folder. I actually modified my cheapest price for cialis target=”_blank”>Registry to display work folders in the Open dialog box’s Object bar, but that’s a lot of work. Regardless of how you initiate the process, you end up slopping through the folder hierarchy to find the file you want.

For quicker access to frequently used files, you can add the Works menu to the menu bar as follows:

To add an item to the Work menu, choose Add To Work Menu from the Work menu. Now, the files you use the most often are just a click away.

Unfortunately, I can’t find the Work menu’s counterpart in Word 2007.

cheapest generic cialis align=”justify”>Moving text usually involves a cut-and-paste task. First, you highlight the text you want to move and press Ctrl + X to copy the text to the Clipboard. Then, you position your cursor where you want the text to be and press Ctrl + V. It’s helpful, but it’s more work than necessary if you’re moving an entire paragraph. To quickly move a paragraph in a document, do the following:

Word will reposition the entire paragraph above or below its current position each time you press Up or Down Arrow. If you change your mind, just press Ctrl +Z to undo the move.