At this point, you should have two new files: one named FORMLET, containing your form letter; and another, holding your data records, named DATAFYL. It is time to reap the fruits of your labor and perform your first MailMerge operation.
To initiate a MailMerge operation, issue the MERGE-PRINT com-mand, [MJ, from the no-file menu. WordStar will ask you for the name of the file to merge-print:
NAME OF FILE TO MERGE PRINT?
Enter the name of the file, in this case FORMLET, and press 1 RETURN I. As with the regular PRINT command, you'll be pro-vided several options to use during the printing session.
To make things simple, you should probably just press 1 RETURN I
for each of these options. If you are not using paper that feeds continuously, however, you may want to answer Y to the
PAUSE BETWEEN PAGES? question. Answering YES to this question halts printing after each page so you can insert indi-vidual sheets of paper. Also, if you wish to make more than one copy of each letter, specify the number of copies in response to
the question. By now you should know
what to do when you see the Ready printer, press RETU RN:
message. That's right! Press 1 RETURN I to start merge-printing.
P = STOP PRINT
The message displays in a box in the middle of your screen. You can stop the merge-print operation at any time by issuing the P command. You would be prompted with the usual options:
i
for abandon printing,W
for continue printing, andW
to temporarily interrupt the printing. Error and other messages appear below the printing message, and if there is room, the current file directory is shown.If you did everything correctly, three form letters should have printed. Did your screen display a message preceded by three asterisks? If so, you made a mistake either in the form-letter file, or in the data file. Refer to the error messages in the Reference Guide for a definition of any error message displayed on your screen. Correct your mistakes, then try again.
The text in merge-printed files automatically reformats after each substitution of a data item for a keyword. Look at the form letters you just printed and note that the surrounding text has accommodated the company names perfectly. Even though data items vary in length, a feature called "print-time line forming"
monitors these variable lengths and adjusts your text for them.
We'll explore the subject of print-time formatting and ways to direct it in depth at the end of this chapter.
Envelopes
You now have three form letters. Wouldn't it be nice to have three addressed envelopes in which to send them? You can print the names and addresses stored in a data file on envelopes by creating a "command file" that specifies the formatting. A com-mand file usually contains no text and only directs formatting and merging of files. Create such a command file with the name
ENVELOPE using the @] option from the no-file menu. You'll use this envelope command file only to format and position the names and addresses on envelopes.
Constructing a command file that directs printing of names and addresses onto envelopes requires more attention to detail than did our form-letter file. You have to use the PAGE LENGTH
DOT command, .PL, to specify the size of the envelope to the printer. Also, you must suppress the top and bottom margins so the address will be centered on the envelope.
The .DF in the following example tells the computer which data file contains the information to be printed. The .RV command lists the keywords and establishes the order in which each data item will print. DOT commands at the beginning of a command file specifying the format for a standard letter-size envelope should look like this:
.RV NAME, COMPANY, STREET, CITYSTATE, ZIPCODE
"C
This is a rudimentary example of a command file which refer-ences a data file to address envelopes. Examine the structure of this envelope file for a moment. The first line is a comment, as indicated by the double periods. These ignored comments help identify the file and are not needed. The page length is set to 26 lines-the size of a standard business letter envelope. Using the .PL command, you can set the page length to match any size envelopes you want. The top margin in the example is set to 12 (.MT 12) and the bottom margin is suppressed (.MB 0). The names and addresses that will print on each envelope will come
from the data file named DATAFYL as specified by the .DF command. You need the .RV to define the order in which the data items will be extracted from the data file and printed in place of keywords.
Printing will have to stop after every envelope so you can insert a new one. You can stop printing after each page by answeringY
to the question, but an easier way to
stop the printer is to put a "C at the end of the DOT commands.
Enter "C by first issuing a "P, then pressing C. Each time "C crops up, the printing will pause. After you've put the next en-velope in place, use the P command to start printing the next envelope.
Save this file with "[KJ [QJ, which will bring you back to the no-file menu. print the envelope file by initiating Merge-Print with [M], and supplying the name ENVELOPE and press-ing the
I
Escl (for escape) key. You will have to position the envelopes in the printer by hand, so you will need to experi-ment a bit before you achieve proper alignexperi-ment.NOTE
The ESC key is a shorthand way of telling WordS tar that you don't want to specify any of the print options. You can use it to avoid the list of questions that appears after you supply the name of the file you want printed. Remember:
you usually press the RETURN key.
By slightly changing the DOT commands in your envelope file, you can create a nicely formatted mailing list. A mailing-list command file would not need to suppress the margins or modify the page length; you would leave out the .PL, .MT, and .MB DOT commands. You will still want to make use of the CONDITIONAL PAGE DOTcommand .CP, however.
A number after the .CP command will cause a new page to start if fewer than that number of lines are left on a page. Since five keywords represent five data items, entering .CP 5 will ensure that no name and address will be split between pages. Set up a mailing-list command file as illustrated below:
.. MAILIST .OF OATAFYL
.RV NAME, COMPANY, STREET, CITYSTATE, ZIPCOOE .CP 5
Is that blank line left in the third address starting to bother you?
A missing data item, such as the street address in the third record of your data file, will usually cause a blank line to appear at the position of the corresponding keyword. Remember that you used a comma in the data file to signify a missing data item.
WordStar allows you to get rid of this blank line if you wish.
Place a slash (/) and the letter 0 after the keyword within the ampersands if you suspect that a piece of information may sometimes be unavailable. The O-which stands for omit, will prevent the blank space from appearing in your list when the file prints. For a keyword using 10 to be effective, nothing else can be on the same line, and a comma must hold a place for the missing item in the data file. Here is how the keywords in a mailing list that accommodates possible missing items look:
&NAME/O&
&COMPANY/O&
&STREET/O&
&CITYSTATE/O&
&ZIPCODE/O&