This page supports the work of scouters seeking to complete requirement
4 c., which requires them to use a word processor to write a letter
to parents of your troop's Scouts, inviting them to a court of honor, then
to use the mail merge feature to make a personalized copy of the letter
for each family. Sometimes the mail merge process is also referred to as
making a form letter.
These Computer Merit Badge pages are maintained by Dr. Robert Houghton
in the Department of Elementary and Middle Grades Education at the College
of Education and Allied Professions, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee,
NC.
There are many ways to solve this problem and many good software
applications that enable you to complete this requirement. This work can
be done with at least these following programs: Clarisworks for Macintosh
or Windows computers from Apple Computer; Appleworks for Apple II series
computers; Word, Excel and Access from Microsoft for Windows operating
systems and Microsoft Works for DOS and Windows operating systems. However
the general nature of this work is very similar from one application or
set of applications to the next. In other words, if you know how to do
it with one application, you are close to being able to do this with another.
How To: Mailmerge (do form letters)- an example using Clarisworks.
Once scouters have seen these examples, they will need to modify their
work appropriately to meet the needs of this requirement.
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Mail
Merge this contact information into form letters by creating a word
processing document that fetches data from database fields. You will identify
the database location, and insert field markers in the word processing
document.
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Add
more fields to the database, then add additional data to each of these
new fields. You will change your layout to make data entry easier. Next
you will expand your word processing form letter to include the new fields.
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Print
your form letter to paper.. Now you will print a form letter for each
record in your database. If the data in the comment fields is too long
it may cut off some of the text when it is inserted from that field.
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Based on these examples you can now create your own mailmerge (form letter)
operation.
In databases with more records than are shown in this example, you can
control how many records are printed by doing a search of the database.
This way it will print only the selected number of records.
