Section 12.5. Sorting Your Recipient List | Word 2007[c] The Missing Manual

12.5. Sorting Your Recipient List

There are lots of reasons why you may want to sort your recipient list before you do a merge. If you're sending a letter as bulk mail, you need to sort letters by Zip code to get a discount from the post office. If you're printing up a directory of clients , you may want to sort the list by state and then by city. Whatever the reason, if you need your letters to be in a specific order at the end of the merge, you need to sort your recipient list at the beginning . Assuming that you've already started your merge and selected a recipient list, here's how to sort the list first by state, and then by city:

Choose Mailings Start Mail Merge Edit Recipient List, or press Alt+M, D to open the Mail Merge Recipients box (Figure 12-12) .

At the top, the Mail Merge Recipients box lists all the individuals who are part of the merge. If you don't want to send a letter to someone, click to remove the checkmark. At the bottom of the box, several options appear under the heading "Refine recipient list."
At the bottom of the Mail Merge Recipients box, click Sort to open the Filter and Sort box (Figure 12-13) .

The Filter and Sort box opens showing the Sort tab. You see three rows in the box, each with a drop-down menu, followed by a couple radio buttons . In the first row, labeled "Sort by," choose State or State/Province from the menu. In the next row, "Then by," choose City. The radio buttons are used to order the sort as Ascending (A to Z or 1 to 100) or Descending. For this sort, Ascending works just fine.
Close the two open boxes by clicking the OK buttons .

Your list is sorted, and you see the results when you merge your letters, envelopes, or directories.

Figure 12-13. To sort your records before you run a merge, choose Mailings Start Mail Merge Edit Recipient List, and then choose the Sort button at the bottom. In the "Sort by box, choose a field to sort by, and then select whether you want the order to be ascending or descending.

12.5.1. Filtering Your Recipient List

Filtering is an indispensable tool if you work with large mailing lists. Imagine that you're the publicist for the author of an historical novel about the French Revolution. The author's doing a book tour in the western U.S. and wants you to send copies to book review editors. You've got a list of all the book review editors for the whole country, but you need to filter out just the editors in the western states.

No problemo. The steps are nearly identical to the previous ones for sorting a recipient list:

Go to Mailings Start Mail Merge Edit Recipient List or press Alt+M, D .

At the bottom of the Mail Merge Recipients box you have several options that help you clean up and select recipients for your mail merge.

Note: You can use one of your own lists for this exercise, or, if you don't have a list, go to www.missingmanuals.com, and then click the "Missing CD" logo at the top of the page. You'll find the editors.mdb contact database listed on this book's page.
Under "Refine recipient list," click Filter to open the Filter and Sort box (Figure 12-14) .

The Filter Records tab presents drop-down menus in logical order. You use them to narrow down the selection of recipients used in the merge.
In the Field drop-down menu, choose State. Then under Comparison, choose "Equal to." Finally, under "Compare to," type in CA for California .

Your merge will include any recipient with CA in the State field.

You also want the book reviewers in Arizona. On the left, in the second row of the Filter Records tab, you see a new option: a drop-down menu with two choicesAnd and Or.
Choose Or because you want book reviewers that are in California or Arizona .

"And" won't work because no one can be in two places at the same time. (However, if you were zeroing in on a particular city, you could specify recipients in California and Glendale.)
After making your "And/Or" decision, select "State" as the Field, and "Equal to" as the Comparison, and then type AZ for Arizona in the "Compare to" box .

Repeat these steps for every state you want to add to the mailing.
Close the Filter and Sort box by clicking the OK button .

Word does the filtering as soon as you click OK. Your Mail Merge Recipients box shows the list of book reviewers who are lucky enough to be on the list to receive that best seller.

Figure 12-14. The Filter Records tab shares a box with the Sort Records tab.

12.5.1.1. Choosing a Comparison option

The Comparison option is an important factor in filtering your recipient list. Word provides several options (that may bring back memories of a math class long ago), which you use to determine how Word decides which recipients to filter from your list relative to the selected field. Much of the time you'll use the first option, "Equal to," which is why it shows up automatically at the top of the list. Here's the complete list of Comparisons you can choose:

Equal to . Finds a perfect match. For example, if you're working with states, "Equal to CA" finds California.
Not equal to . Use "Not equal to" when you want to exclude part of your list. "Not equal to CA" removes California recipients from your list.
Less than . Usually used for numbers, less than can also be used alphabetically where A is less than Z. If you're filtering by Zip code, "Less than 99987" includes 99986 and smaller Zip code numbers .
Greater than . The opposite of "Less than," also for both letters and numbers. In an alphabetical list, "Greater than Smith" includes, for example, Smithy and all names that come after it alphabetically.
Less than or equal to . This example is just like "Less than," except it includes the number used in the comparison. So, "Less than or equal to 99987" includes 99987 and all smaller Zip code numbers.
Greater than or equal to . The cousin of "Less than or equal to." For example, to include all recipients who have a first name , use "Greater than or equal to A."

12.5.2. Find Duplicates

When you work with big lists and you use them for a long time, duplicate recipients seem to pop up. You can help to minimize the problem with the "Find duplicates" command in the Mail Merge Recipients box (Mailings Start Mail Merge Edit Recipient List or Alt+M, D). At bottom, under "Refine recipient list," click "Find duplicates to open the dialog box shown in Figure 12-15. This box shows you any recipients that are potential duplicates. All you have to do is uncheck the ones that shouldn't be included in your mailing.

12.5.3. Find Recipient

If you're maintaining a very long list of recipients and need to jump in and change, say, a street address, a search tool can save you loads of time. To zero in on a specific recipient in your list, open the Mail Merge Recipients box (Alt+M, D). Then, at the bottom of the box under "Refine recipient list," choose "Find recipient." The Find Entry box opens (Figure 12-16). It's easy to use the box to search for a specific word or even just a group of letters or numbers. If the first record that pops up isn't the one you're looking for, click the Find Next button.

Figure 12-15. The Find Duplicates box hunts down recipients that are suspiciously similar. Turn off the boxes next to duplicates that you don't want to include in the merge. Eliminating duplicates is an important part of maintaining large mailing lists. It's also helpful to use Find Duplicates when you're combining a couple of lists for a merge.

Figure 12-16. Open the Find Entry box to search for a specific recipient in your list. Type the words for your search in the Find box. Click "All fields" to search everywhere in your list, or use the drop-down menu to select a specific field. This search looks for "Manette" only when it appears in the LNAME field.

UP TO SPEED
Creating Non-Mail Merges

If you think of mail merge as a multipurpose tool, you can really get creative. You can merge any list of words or things into any type of Word document. The shape and form of the document and what's in the list are entirely up to you. You can use mail merge for projects that have absolutely nothing to do with mail. Perhaps you're making presentations to several different companies; you can use mail merge to create customized marketing pieces. Imagine your massive sales force blanketing the nation with customized proposals in hand that say:

"We guarantee that Apple will quadruple its profits by using our EZ-Clipper for its next iPod promotion. Just give us a call and we'll give you a personal presentation in Cupertino ."

"We know that Microsoft will quadruple its profits by using our EZ-Clipper for its next Xbox promotion. Just give us a call and we'll give you a personal presentation in Redmond ."