I don't know if others have ran into this, but for years I have had problems with mail merges in draw.  Specifically, the field length would truncate the text regardless of the point size or font.  It was very inconsistent and very very irritating!  Yesterday I tried another mail merge and noticed the ODBC interface (is that new?) in the mail merge which gave me direct access to the data in the db.  Even if for no other reason than it made it quicker and easier to test.  The field text truncated in the merge as always and I tried all the old attempted fixes to no avail.  Then it occurred to me to try something strange, I increased the length of the field names.  For example from "Address" to "VeryLongAddressFieldforTesting" and that seemed to work!  I haven't had a chance to export this to a text file and try that or any other exhaustive testing, but at least it worked this time!!!

Steve

Steve

1) Did your solution work?

2) I am struggling to do a Mail Merge in Coreldraw (all I want to do is similar to mail merge in MS Word for address labels) any ideas where I can get step by step instructions?

Thanks

pete

 Hi Pete

Article/Tutorial appeared in the web magazines (Dec-Jan & Feb-Mar)  on Unleash.com may help you. I am not sure if Dec-Jan issue is still available for download. If no, mail me. I shall mail back the steps.

Anand 

 Hello Seco

seco:

I haven't had a chance to export this to a text file and try that or any other exhaustive testing, but at least it worked this time!!!

I have used CorelDRAW's mail merge extensively. I use it to replace almost 75 fields in a job. I do not use ODBC directly in CorelDRAW. My experience with the text file is fine.

I am unable to visualise the results (truncating of text) you are getting. If you can post the files, I think I could suggest you some steps. 

Anand 

The long field names did solve the truncation problem in X3.  Personally I have moved on to X4 which apparently had a mail merge re-write, but I haven't had a use for it yet.

Pete, what problems are you having with tha mail merge?  For me the biggest thing is to understand it's limitations and work around them.  This may be overly simplistic but, for example if the have an address file where some records have 3 lines (Name, address, city/state/zip) and some with 4 line (name, address1, address2, city/state/zip).  There really is no great way to automate this in Corel without leaving a blank line etc.  Understand that and split the file in to two files, one 3 line and one 4 and perform 2 separate mail merges.  Same with font sizes, etc. 

Steve & Anand

Thanks for your replies

I went to unleash.com and downloaded a free video tutorial from Jeff Harrison.That looks like it will help me out - I'll try it tomorrow evening

Thanks

Pete

Pete:

I went to unleash.com and downloaded a free video tutorial from Jeff Harrison.That looks like it will help me out - I'll try it tomorrow evening

You can also download the webmagazine from unleash.com for my article on this issue that explains easy steps to use a txt file for data merging in CDraw. 

seco:

There really is no great way to automate this in Corel without leaving a blank line etc.

You are right. Corel does'nt have those great features like DB handling SWs. Just a tip. See if it helps you. Use spreadsheet powers to create a .TXT file for using it with Corel.

BTW X4 has some problems with print merge & I hope those are fixed in SP1. I am still on Corel12 for critical printmerge jobs.

 Anand

Hi Anand!

Please do send me the steps! It would be of immense help!

Pradeep

Pradeep

Link to download the magazine containging the article. Dec-Jan contains an article on creating fields in CorelDRAW and Jan-Feb magazine contains article on using a spreadsheet data file with CorelDRAW.

Anand

 Pradeep

I found a Jeff Harrison video on Unleashed to be very useful - it is a free download

Search the Graphics Unleashed web site fof  "jeff harrison print merge" and it comes up as the second item

Pete