How can I use just the first character of a forename in a merge Steve hayes 5/11/2007 7:19:00 AM I need to set up a mailing from OUTLOOK contacts. I want to address the name as title, first character of forename, then surname i.e. Mr John Smith = Mr J Smith. I believe it is somewhere in field cods but cannot find anythig under HELP. Please assist Thanx

Re: How can I use just the first character of a forename in a merge "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" <dkr[ at ]REMOVECAPSmvps.org> 5/11/2007 9:01:15 AM There is no way that can be done by fiddling with the field code. You could execute the merge to a catalog (or directory in Word XP and later) mail merge in which you arranged the fields so that they produced the names in the format of Mr John Smith and then you could use a Wildcard Edit>Replace to dispense with the unwanted part of the forename. Then that modified file could be used as the data source. -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "Steve hayes" <Steve hayes[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:1B8C1946-B118-4B01-8FC4-54DE79A4E3DE[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] >I need to set up a mailing from OUTLOOK contacts. I want to address the >name > as title, first character of forename, then surname i.e. Mr John Smith = > Mr J > Smith. I believe it is somewhere in field cods but cannot find anythig > under > HELP. > Please assist > Thanx

Re: How can I use just the first character of a forename in a merge "Graham Mayor" <gmayor[ at ]REMOVETHISmvps.org> 5/11/2007 10:06:10 AM For individual records (as opposed to mail merge) you can extract this information from Outlook by using code similar to the example at http://www.gmayor.com/Macrobutton.htm -- <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<> Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<> Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote: [Quoted Text] > There is no way that can be done by fiddling with the field code. You > could execute the merge to a catalog (or directory in Word XP and > later) mail merge in which you arranged the fields so that they > produced the names in the format of Mr John Smith and then you could > use a Wildcard Edit>Replace to dispense with the unwanted part of the > forename. Then that modified file could be used as the data source. > > > "Steve hayes" <Steve hayes[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message > news:1B8C1946-B118-4B01-8FC4-54DE79A4E3DE[ at ]microsoft.com... >> I need to set up a mailing from OUTLOOK contacts. I want to address >> the name >> as title, first character of forename, then surname i.e. Mr John >> Smith = Mr J >> Smith. I believe it is somewhere in field cods but cannot find >> anythig under >> HELP. >> Please assist >> Thanx

Re: How can I use just the first character of a forename in a merge "Peter Jamieson" <pjj[ at ]KillmapSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> 5/11/2007 3:31:39 PM Without using VBA and Word's Mailmerge events, there are a some approaches you can take to this (other than storing the initial separately in Outlook), but they are all awkward to use. e.g. 1. If you have Access, you can link a table to your Contacts list in Outlook, then write an Access query that takes the leftmost character of the first name, then use that as the data source. The problem with that is that Access only retrieves some of the fields from the Contacts folder and they may not include the ones you need. You may also find that Unicode characters do do transfer properly. (To do this, create a new Access database, then use File|Get External Data|Link Tables...then in the Files of type... dropdown at the bottom of the Link dialog box, select Outlook() and follow the dialogs. I leave you to work out how to do the query and so on). 2. Use 26 IF fields in your Word document as follows: { IF { MERGEFIELD First_Name \*Upper } = "A*" "A" "" }{ IF { MERGEFIELD First_Name \*Upper } = "B*" "B" "" } and so on down to Z (assuming you only need worry about the 26 basic Latin letters Peter Jamieson "Steve hayes" <Steve hayes[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:1B8C1946-B118-4B01-8FC4-54DE79A4E3DE[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] >I need to set up a mailing from OUTLOOK contacts. I want to address the >name > as title, first character of forename, then surname i.e. Mr John Smith = > Mr J > Smith. I believe it is somewhere in field cods but cannot find anythig > under > HELP. > Please assist > Thanx