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I have a long Excel list with data in the following format:

A, B, C

x, y, z1

x, y, z2

x, y, z3

I want to create a mail merge in Word 11 for Mac in the following style for each x, y , which is a user and z(n) is his content:

User: x, y

Content: z1, z2, z3, ... z(n)

How to do that?

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depends on excel version. but you should find out how to create a pivot table in your execel version and then copy that pivot table to word –  rhasti Jan 3 '13 at 8:10
Excel 2007 it is. –  mcbetz Jan 3 '13 at 8:26
I am quite sure, you can't solve it using Pivot Table, as I have no data that needs sums or other operations. –  mcbetz Jan 3 '13 at 17:00
I found a solution, yet it seems to work on Windows only. cornell.veplan.net/article.aspx?a=3815 –  mcbetz Jan 3 '13 at 17:30
Hello mmb, if it works for you, you can post it as an answer and accept the answer –  nixda Jan 3 '13 at 17:33

2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

While there are detailed answers for this problem, which is called mail merge using catalog, most are way too complicated to understand the basic concept.

The answer for this MWE on Word Mac 2011 however would be:

  1. Open Tools > Mail Merge Manager
  2. Create New > Catalog
  3. From 2. Select Recipients List choose your source (XLS, Database...)
  4. From 5. click {a} to get source view
  5. Enter the following code manually

    { IF { MERGESEQ } = 1 "{ MERGEFIELD A }" ""} { SET A1 { MERGEFIELD }} { IF { A1 } <> { A2 } "{ MERGEFIELD B }" "{ MERGEFIELD B}" { SET A2 { MERGEFIELD A }}

  6. From 6. click "Merge to New Document"

  7. Done!
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The solution to the problem is called catalog or sort by category (the name for the function seems to differ between versions and platforms).

Or in the words of the below quoted solution:


What it does is to include logic to mail merge, i.e. if...then...else for finding out whether certain fields repeat.

There is a swift solution for this problem: http://cornell.veplan.net/article.aspx?a=3815

There is also a more detailed documentation on Microsoft's support page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294686/en-us

However, it seems, that it only works on Windows machines.

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