Mail Merge: How to begin? 1

[KerryL]

I have a database that will need to be used as a source for addressing letters. I know how to do a mail merge in Word, but I don't know how to use the data in my customer table for addressing letters, or envelopes or address labels.

How would I go about creating options for my users to address form letters using the names/addresses from the customer table?

Also, I would like to allow them to address envelopes in the same manner.

The users will need the ability to address letters & envelopes using ALL records, or select which ones to print based on one of the fields (an org name) in the table.

Any advice I can get on where to begin will be helpful.

Thanks,
KerryL

 

[KerryL]

Thank you for verifying that for me.

I was able to make a 1-to-many relationship from tblCategories to tblContactCats, but for some reason Access won't allow me to do the same from tblContacts to tblContactCats.

When I create a relationship between those two tables Access forces it to be a 1-to-1 relationship and won't allow me to modify it. Can't figure out why.

 

[dhookom]

Check your primary key and data types in tblCOntactCats. I would use an Autonumber as a primary key and have numeric long data types for ContactID and CategoryID. Create a UNIQUE index on the combination of these two fields.

Duane
MS Access MVP
Find out how to get great answers faq219-2884.

 

[KerryL]

Thank you. Yes, I had already created ConCatID as an autonumber for the primary key in tblContactCats, and the data type for ContactID & CategoryID were numeric long.

Also, the Indexed property was set to Yes(No Duplicates).
When I changed that to Yes(Duplicats OK) I was able to change the type of relationship from tblContacts.ContactID to tblContactCats.ContactID to a 1-to-many relationship.


I also selected "Enforce Referential Integrity" but I'm never quite sure about "Cascade Update Related Fields" and "Cascade Delete Related Records." What is your advice on those options?

 

[dhookom]

If the primary keys of the relationships are autonumbers then the Cascade Update Related Fields is not necessary since you can't update the autonumber fields. Cascade Delete Related Records is a good idea.

Duane
MS Access MVP
Find out how to get great answers faq219-2884.