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mabfrazer's avatar
mabfrazer
Copper Contributor
Sep 01, 2023

Better Way merge Excel Data to printable Customer Profile Publication

Hello All,

Every year I have to take our customers' data from within Excel and create an intricate form with Publisher > Mail Merge.  I have to smush a bunch of tables into the file that is supposed to fit on one printed page, front and back.  It contains their names, addresses, family members, purchases, etc.  It's always been a matter of pride to make it look nice, as well as easy to read for our front desk employees and our customers.  However, the ongoing amount of time required to:

  • Make space for new/future data fields/tables
  • Make sure the merge fields fit properly
  • Fit in tables that only pertain to a small margin of our customers
  • Hand fill in cost/payment information instead of merging the costs

I know it's a tremendous waste of time and I'm sure there's a better way to do it.  I have absolutely no problem learning new skills (am happy to, actually), but I don't know where to start.  What program / plug-in / macros should I use if I want my final product to be:

  • printable form with merged data
  • looks professional
  • only prints the tables/fields needed (I guess like and 'if - then' / conditional table).

If some of the profiles are more than two pages, that's not a problem.  But having hundreds of files printing out at 3 to 7 pages is too wasteful.  

An example of one of the pages

 

Any advice is very appreciated!

 

Many Thanks!

4 Replies

  • peiyezhu's avatar
    peiyezhu
    Bronze Contributor

    Make space for new/future data fields/tables?

    Can you provide some raw data.and your expected result which maybe.helpful to visualize what kind of automation you want to achieve.

    • mabfrazer's avatar
      mabfrazer
      Copper Contributor
      For example, if the customer adds additional people to their account, I would want to auto populate a new table that shows additional person(people) data = names, addresses, phone, email, vehicle, children, etc.

      If the customer doesn't have additional people, I don't want those extra tables to be there. As it is now, I have to custom create extra forms for each extra person.

      I'd also love to have it flag fields that are missing data, so that when the form prints, it makes a list of fields that need to be addressed.

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