Mail Merge cahnges the page margin set up

[DirectMarketingMan]

I've set up a new letter in word and at the end included a short questionnaire. The questionnaire has different page margins than the letter. Now when i mail merge the new document has reset margins throughtout - which means that my letter now looks rubbish. Is there a way to stop this in version 9 of act! (in 6 which i've just upgraded from this problem did not exist) It's a bit worrying becasue most of the stuff we send out has pages with different margin set ups. Thanks Paul

 

[DirectMarketingMan]

Aha! After several attemps, plus talking to an Act conslutant and Act technical Help in the UK it seems there is a bug in the programme. In otherwords you can't fix the problem direct. I have found a solution as sorts ... this is what i did:

1 Set up the page margins as standard
2 inserted a 3 column table for the letter then change the column widths in the table/table properties/column (i'm using A4 paper which is 21cm wide so the margins were set at 1cm each side and the three tables columns set as 2cm, 15cm and 2cm)
3 Inserted the text of my letter include merge fields into the centre column.

hey presto it works

Pain in the BS but until the fix the bug it works

Thanks

Paul

 

[GLComputing]

ACT! 6 created email templates in it own processor with produced a GMT file (simplified HTML)

ACT! 7 and later uses Word and unfortunately relies on Microsoft's conversion to HTML, which is not as good as it should be.

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[DirectMarketingMan]

Hi Mike

Thanks for that - no this was a problem merging a word template to a large group to print out a letter not email.

The template has a letter set to a standard letter margins and then ratecard, order forms and credit card payment form all of which are set to different page margins. When i did a merge to more that one record all the margins set to the same as the credit card payment form.

When I spoke to Sage Tech Help they said try creating a new document from sctach (the one i used was updated from Act 6) and do it again - same problem. Sage Tech help tried it is well and had the same problem. They admitted that there is a bug in the system.

I have found a solution which is much more elegant that my orginal one above:

On the first line of your letter - make it a blank line. Turn on invisibles and select the line. Now select Format then Colunms and then select 2 columns. Now in the same box at the bottom it says Apply to: selected text. This sets the first line of the letter as two columns.

Now when you merge the document it keeps all the page margins for all the records.

Don't exactly know why it works (or why there was a problem in the first place) But it does work and is a quick and simple solution while sage pulls their finger out and fixes the bug for real.

Kind Regards

Paul

 

[GLComputing]

You said you spoke to a consultant... which one? I know most of them.

You should make sure they get it posted as a bug if they have verified it.

The phone support people sometimes don't escalate it... and if others haven't called about it, if might never be fixed. the Certified Consultants have access to level 3 support guys that will get it into the bug database.

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au