Performing a document merge

What you may expect from a document merge. Jim Evins evins@snaught.com Mario Blättermann mario.blaettermann@gmail.com

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Document Merge (sometimes called "Mail Merge") is a powerful feature that allows a unique label or card to be printed for each record in an external data source.

The first step to performing a document merge is to prepare a source document that contains your merge data. This data could be mailing addresses or any other data that you wish to create unique labels or cards for. Currently back-ends only exist for text files and the evolution data server -- others are planned. The currently supported text-file format is very simple: each line is a record; fields are delimited by commas (CSV), tabs, or colons; and newlines can be embedded into fields by using the "\n" entity. This file could be created using any text editor or could be created by another program or script. A common way of creating CSV files is to export them from a spreadsheet program or from address book applications.

To export a CSV file from kaddressbook, first select the contacts you wish to export. Click on the first contact, then press and hold Ctrl and click on the other desired contacts to select them. Then choose FileExport Export CSV File.

In the Select Contacts window, enable the button Selected contacts (which should be enabled by default anyway). Then click on OK. In the Save As dialog, choose the desired folder and a name for the file and click on Save.

To export a CSV file from Thunderbird, click on the Address Book toolbar button or choose Tools Address Book from the menu. Then select the contacts you wish to export. Click on the first contact, then press and hold Ctrl and click on the other desired contacts to select them. Then choose ToolsExport .

In the file chooser window, choose the desired folder and a name for the file and change the value of the drop-down button in the right bottom corner to Comma Separated. Finally, click on Save.

A label must then be configured to "point at" this data file. To configure the merge properties of a document, choose Objects Merge Properties menu item to display the merge properties dialog. This dialog is used to select the exact data file format and file name (location) of the merge data.

Finally, once the label has been configured for a data file, field keys can be inserted into text objects and used as source or data for barcode objects and image filenames for image objects. See for more information on using merge data for these object types.

Now that your label is configured, gLabels will print a unique label for each record in your source document -- substituting fields from each record for field keys in the all text, barcode, and image objects.

See for a detailed tutorial on the document merge feature.