INCLUDEPICTURE on Merge in Word 2008 --> tip on updating t..

I don't know whether the following will help you, given the "pictures in
text box" scenario, but in a later conversation we had...

-----------------
However, you will probably be better off using macropod's construction
to ensure that you do not have to update the picture results, i.e.
something along the lines of

{ INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } }

and to ensure that the INCLUDEPICTURE fields are removed post-merge, you
can try

{ IF { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } {
INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } }

- both of those seem to work on Mac Word 2008 as well, and that probably
means they'll work on Word 2004 too.
-----------------

(If it works, it should also work with paths constructed from a mix of
literal text and fields, such as
"/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/{ MERGEFIELD Photo })

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 03/11/2009 01:32, John Roberts wrote:
> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>
> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>
> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>
> Here's what I did to make it work.
>
> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
> the Links menu.
>
> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>
> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>
> John
>
> LINKS
> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.wo...2008-09
> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.wo...2008-09
> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.wo...2008-09

Hi Peter:

I suspect the issue is that INCLUDEPICTURE needs updating to cause it to
actually retrieve the picture.

You can only pass "text" across the Merge. Which means you can pass the
fully-qualified path into the INCLUDEPICTURE field. But you still have to
update the INCLUDEPICTURE field to make it actually retrieve the picture.

That would be fine if you were merging to print: you could close the re-open
the document, and if you included the /d switch to prevent embedding, Word
would be forced to go get the picture.

But if you are merging to email, I am not sure that it would actually
update.

Sorry: I haven't tested it.


On 3/11/09 9:08 PM, in article OcjZf2GXKHA.3720 RemoveThis @TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl, "Peter
Jamieson" <pjj RemoveThis @KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> I don't know whether the following will help you, given the "pictures in
> text box" scenario, but in a later conversation we had...
>
> -----------------
> However, you will probably be better off using macropod's construction
> to ensure that you do not have to update the picture results, i.e.
> something along the lines of
>
> { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } }
>
> and to ensure that the INCLUDEPICTURE fields are removed post-merge, you
> can try
>
> { IF { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } {
> INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } }
>
> - both of those seem to work on Mac Word 2008 as well, and that probably
> means they'll work on Word 2004 too.
> -----------------
>
> (If it works, it should also work with paths constructed from a mix of
> literal text and fields, such as
> "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/{ MERGEFIELD Photo })
>
> Peter Jamieson
>
> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>
> On 03/11/2009 01:32, John Roberts wrote:
>> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
>> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
>> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>>
>> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
>> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>>
>> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
>> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
>> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
>> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
>> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
>> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>>
>> Here's what I did to make it work.
>>
>> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
>> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
>> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
>> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
>> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
>> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
>> the Links menu.
>>
>> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>>
>> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>>
>> John
>>
>> LINKS
>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>> -09/msg00268.html
>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>> -09/msg00283.html
>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>> -09/msg00372.html


--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name

Hi John;

Congratulation on finding the alternative for updating the links! From what
you quoted, though, it would seem that it isn't so much a matter of that
method "missing" as much as it is a "slip of the fingers" in that
instruction the keyboard command to update the links after Command+A
should have read as just F9, not fn+F9.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 11/2/09 8:32 PM, in article
52640f7b-feea-4bcc-a769-b8eb0178e758.TakeThisOut@a37g2000prf.googlegroups.com, "John
Roberts" <john.roberts.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>
> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>
> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>
> Here's what I did to make it work.
>
> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
> the Links menu.
>
> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>
> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>
> John
>
> LINKS
> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008-
> 09/msg00268.html
> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008-
> 09/msg00283.html
> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008-
> 09/msg00372.html

Part of the investigation was sorting out which of the document needed
the links updated: the source template or the final output. It's the
final output document which benefited from my approach.

Wasn't aware the text box made things more complicated: chose that
method for layout purposes because I didn't want to start anew with a
table.

On Nov 3, 3:06 am, CyberTaz <onlygeneralt....DeleteThis@com.cast.net> wrote:
> Hi John;
>
> Congratulation on finding the alternative for updating the links! From what
> you quoted, though, it would seem that it isn't so much a matter of that
> method "missing" as much as it is a "slip of the fingers" in that
> instruction the keyboard command to update the links after Command+A
> should have read as just F9, not fn+F9.
>
> Regards |:>)
> Bob Jones
> [MVP] Office:Mac

Hi John,

My field construction forces Word to update & unlink the fields as the mailmerge executes. There is no need to update & unlink the
fields afterwards.

In some versions of Word, though, if the picture referenced by the INCLUDEPICTURE field is missing Word 'kindly' inserts the image
from the previous record. This has nothing to do with the version of my field coding Peter mentioned but can be overcome by coding
the field as:

{IF {INCLUDEPICTURE {IF TRUE "FilePath\«Image»"} \d} {INCLUDEPICTURE {IF TRUE "FilePath\«Image»"} \d}}
or
{IF {INCLUDEPICTURE {IF TRUE "FilePath\{MERGEFIELD Image}"} \d} {INCLUDEPICTURE {IF TRUE "FilePath\{MERGEFIELD Image}"} \d}}
depending on whether you're using the 'Insert Mergefield' dialog.

With the above, the worst Word will do if the image is missing is to insert an empty image placeholder.

--
Cheers
macropod
[Microsoft MVP - Word]


"John McGhie" <john.TakeThisOut@mcghie.name> wrote in message news:C71655B2.39A0%john@mcghie.name...
> Hi Peter:
>
> I suspect the issue is that INCLUDEPICTURE needs updating to cause it to
> actually retrieve the picture.
>
> You can only pass "text" across the Merge. Which means you can pass the
> fully-qualified path into the INCLUDEPICTURE field. But you still have to
> update the INCLUDEPICTURE field to make it actually retrieve the picture.
>
> That would be fine if you were merging to print: you could close the re-open
> the document, and if you included the /d switch to prevent embedding, Word
> would be forced to go get the picture.
>
> But if you are merging to email, I am not sure that it would actually
> update.
>
> Sorry: I haven't tested it.
>
>
> On 3/11/09 9:08 PM, in article OcjZf2GXKHA.3720.TakeThisOut@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl, "Peter
> Jamieson" <pjj.TakeThisOut@KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I don't know whether the following will help you, given the "pictures in
>> text box" scenario, but in a later conversation we had...
>>
>> -----------------
>> However, you will probably be better off using macropod's construction
>> to ensure that you do not have to update the picture results, i.e.
>> something along the lines of
>>
>> { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } }
>>
>> and to ensure that the INCLUDEPICTURE fields are removed post-merge, you
>> can try
>>
>> { IF { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } {
>> INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } }
>>
>> - both of those seem to work on Mac Word 2008 as well, and that probably
>> means they'll work on Word 2004 too.
>> -----------------
>>
>> (If it works, it should also work with paths constructed from a mix of
>> literal text and fields, such as
>> "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/{ MERGEFIELD Photo })
>>
>> Peter Jamieson
>>
>> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>>
>> On 03/11/2009 01:32, John Roberts wrote:
>>> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
>>> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
>>> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>>>
>>> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
>>> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>>>
>>> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
>>> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
>>> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
>>> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
>>> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
>>> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>>>
>>> Here's what I did to make it work.
>>>
>>> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
>>> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
>>> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
>>> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
>>> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
>>> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
>>> the Links menu.
>>>
>>> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>>>
>>> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>> LINKS
>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>>> -09/msg00268.html
>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>>> -09/msg00283.html
>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>>> -09/msg00372.html
>
>
> --
>
> This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
> matters unless you intend to pay!
>
> John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
> McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
> Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
> +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name
>
>

Hi John,

I wouldn't have posted that particular text previously if I hadn't
actually tested at least one merge scenario using Mac Word 2008. As for
merge to email, INCLUDEPICTURE in texboxes, or merge on Mac Word 2004, I
don't know either. At some point I may try to find out unless someone
else does so first.

But since one solution was posted here I thought it was worth ensuring
that macropod's potentially simpler approach - in the sense that no
post-merge updates are required - was also described.

The real question is why users have to resort to this kind of
workaround. Can you - or anyone else - think of any good technical
reasons why MS shouldn't fix the ordinary INCLUDEPICTURE field so that
"it just works" ? (And I'm not just talking about the Mac version).
Or maybe we should expect that if merging pictures has been made
difficult for so-called "security" reasons, a workaround that makes it
easy again will be deliberately broken in a future "security" release.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 03/11/2009 10:48, John McGhie wrote:
> Hi Peter:
>
> I suspect the issue is that INCLUDEPICTURE needs updating to cause it to
> actually retrieve the picture.
>
> You can only pass "text" across the Merge. Which means you can pass the
> fully-qualified path into the INCLUDEPICTURE field. But you still have to
> update the INCLUDEPICTURE field to make it actually retrieve the picture.
>
> That would be fine if you were merging to print: you could close the re-open
> the document, and if you included the /d switch to prevent embedding, Word
> would be forced to go get the picture.
>
> But if you are merging to email, I am not sure that it would actually
> update.
>
> Sorry: I haven't tested it.
>
>
> On 3/11/09 9:08 PM, in article OcjZf2GXKHA.3720.DeleteThis@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl, "Peter
> Jamieson"<pjj.DeleteThis@KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I don't know whether the following will help you, given the "pictures in
>> text box" scenario, but in a later conversation we had...
>>
>> -----------------
>> However, you will probably be better off using macropod's construction
>> to ensure that you do not have to update the picture results, i.e.
>> something along the lines of
>>
>> { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } }
>>
>> and to ensure that the INCLUDEPICTURE fields are removed post-merge, you
>> can try
>>
>> { IF { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } {
>> INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } }
>>
>> - both of those seem to work on Mac Word 2008 as well, and that probably
>> means they'll work on Word 2004 too.
>> -----------------
>>
>> (If it works, it should also work with paths constructed from a mix of
>> literal text and fields, such as
>> "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/{ MERGEFIELD Photo })
>>
>> Peter Jamieson
>>
>> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>>
>> On 03/11/2009 01:32, John Roberts wrote:
>>> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
>>> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
>>> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>>>
>>> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
>>> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>>>
>>> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
>>> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
>>> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
>>> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
>>> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
>>> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>>>
>>> Here's what I did to make it work.
>>>
>>> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
>>> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
>>> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
>>> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
>>> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
>>> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
>>> the Links menu.
>>>
>>> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>>>
>>> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>> LINKS
>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>>> -09/msg00268.html
>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>>> -09/msg00283.html
>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/2008
>>> -09/msg00372.html
>
>
> --
>
> This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
> matters unless you intend to pay!
>
> John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
> McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
> Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
> +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name
>
>

Hi Peter:

I can think of a number of "reasons" why these "power user" features don't
get fixed, but they all come under the heading of "Commercial Malfeasance"


<Rant>

There are a large number of "Microsoft Partners" exerting strong pressure on
Ballmer to take the "power tools" out of Microsoft Office so that they can
continue to sell consulting services at $2,000.00 a day to do for customers
what the customer's users used to be able to do for themselves.

A case in point is Mail Merge... I just spend six months trying to help a
company implement a mail-merge add-on to a business management system. They
paid three million for the add-on, and funded a team of two business
analysts, three letter coders, two change managers, three vendor consultants
and two Business Process managers. For 12 months. That's nearly four
million worth of salaries.

Eventually the client canned the project and we all walked away because the
system doesn't work anywhere near as well as Microsoft Word (for example, it
cannot merge pictures at all....) and it requires on-going commitment of a
BA, a Coder and a Consultant for the life of the system!

Every time those vendors (yeah, it *is* a UK company...) get into a huddle
with Steve Ballmer at a "Partner Conference" they are going to really lean
on him not to allow Microsoft Office to get good enough to cut off that
particular cash cow, which they are hoping to sell to every bank and finance
company in the world...

Being a smart businessman, Ballmer is going to go back to his Marketing guys
and say "OK, if we blow away these guys' revenue stream, they will instantly
find a way to do their thing with open-source. So you tell me how I am
going to make money by fixing these things, then running the risk of having
every bank and finance company in the world flip over to a Linux desktop
running OpenOffice?"

It's not about "the user" and it's not about "the application". It's about
the MONEY. Shareholder's money. It's about improving the dividend going to
large pension funds and private capital funds by one tenth of one per cent.

The reason Microsoft is rushing headlong into moving Office into the cloud
with web versions has nothing to do with pissing off Google (well, maybe a
little...).

If they succeed, it means they can instantly strip 80 per cent of the
functionality from Office, then sell it back to the large companies via
various add-ons and "Consulting Services" provided by "Microsoft Partners".
It means they instantly get paid for EVERY copy that is in use (all of the
machinery is on the server, if you don't pay, you can't play...). It means
the Telcos are instantly Microsoft's best friends (any idea what kind of
deal Microsoft could do on the Bandwidth to run www.microsoft.com and all of
Windows Live Services if in return they promised to force everyone who
wanted to write a "letter to Mom" to expend a megabyte of bandwidth with
COMCAST?

I have been saying for years "Any fool with a compiler can make software.
Making money is a completely different ball game."

</Rant>

Cheers

On 4/11/09 10:08 AM, in article elpuPqNXKHA.408.TakeThisOut@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl, "Peter
Jamieson" <pjj.TakeThisOut@KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> I wouldn't have posted that particular text previously if I hadn't
> actually tested at least one merge scenario using Mac Word 2008. As for
> merge to email, INCLUDEPICTURE in texboxes, or merge on Mac Word 2004, I
> don't know either. At some point I may try to find out unless someone
> else does so first.
>
> But since one solution was posted here I thought it was worth ensuring
> that macropod's potentially simpler approach - in the sense that no
> post-merge updates are required - was also described.
>
> The real question is why users have to resort to this kind of
> workaround. Can you - or anyone else - think of any good technical
> reasons why MS shouldn't fix the ordinary INCLUDEPICTURE field so that
> "it just works" ? (And I'm not just talking about the Mac version).
> Or maybe we should expect that if merging pictures has been made
> difficult for so-called "security" reasons, a workaround that makes it
> easy again will be deliberately broken in a future "security" release.
>
> Peter Jamieson
>
> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>
> On 03/11/2009 10:48, John McGhie wrote:
>> Hi Peter:
>>
>> I suspect the issue is that INCLUDEPICTURE needs updating to cause it to
>> actually retrieve the picture.
>>
>> You can only pass "text" across the Merge. Which means you can pass the
>> fully-qualified path into the INCLUDEPICTURE field. But you still have to
>> update the INCLUDEPICTURE field to make it actually retrieve the picture.
>>
>> That would be fine if you were merging to print: you could close the re-open
>> the document, and if you included the /d switch to prevent embedding, Word
>> would be forced to go get the picture.
>>
>> But if you are merging to email, I am not sure that it would actually
>> update.
>>
>> Sorry: I haven't tested it.
>>
>>
>> On 3/11/09 9:08 PM, in article OcjZf2GXKHA.3720.TakeThisOut@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl, "Peter
>> Jamieson"<pjj.TakeThisOut@KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't know whether the following will help you, given the "pictures in
>>> text box" scenario, but in a later conversation we had...
>>>
>>> -----------------
>>> However, you will probably be better off using macropod's construction
>>> to ensure that you do not have to update the picture results, i.e.
>>> something along the lines of
>>>
>>> { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } }
>>>
>>> and to ensure that the INCLUDEPICTURE fields are removed post-merge, you
>>> can try
>>>
>>> { IF { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } {
>>> INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } }
>>>
>>> - both of those seem to work on Mac Word 2008 as well, and that probably
>>> means they'll work on Word 2004 too.
>>> -----------------
>>>
>>> (If it works, it should also work with paths constructed from a mix of
>>> literal text and fields, such as
>>> "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/{ MERGEFIELD Photo })
>>>
>>> Peter Jamieson
>>>
>>> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>>>
>>> On 03/11/2009 01:32, John Roberts wrote:
>>>> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
>>>> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
>>>> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>>>>
>>>> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
>>>> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>>>>
>>>> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
>>>> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
>>>> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
>>>> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
>>>> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
>>>> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>>>>
>>>> Here's what I did to make it work.
>>>>
>>>> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
>>>> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
>>>> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
>>>> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
>>>> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
>>>> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
>>>> the Links menu.
>>>>
>>>> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>> LINKS
>>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/20
>>>> 08
>>>> -09/msg00268.html
>>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/20
>>>> 08
>>>> -09/msg00283.html
>>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/20
>>>> 08
>>>> -09/msg00372.html
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
>> matters unless you intend to pay!
>>
>> John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
>> McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
>> Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
>> +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name
>>
>>


--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name

Very enjoyable rant, John Shame about your Mail merge project, though.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 04/11/2009 03:16, John McGhie wrote:
> Hi Peter:
>
> I can think of a number of "reasons" why these "power user" features don't
> get fixed, but they all come under the heading of "Commercial Malfeasance"
>
>
> <Rant>
>
> There are a large number of "Microsoft Partners" exerting strong pressure on
> Ballmer to take the "power tools" out of Microsoft Office so that they can
> continue to sell consulting services at $2,000.00 a day to do for customers
> what the customer's users used to be able to do for themselves.
>
> A case in point is Mail Merge... I just spend six months trying to help a
> company implement a mail-merge add-on to a business management system. They
> paid three million for the add-on, and funded a team of two business
> analysts, three letter coders, two change managers, three vendor consultants
> and two Business Process managers. For 12 months. That's nearly four
> million worth of salaries.
>
> Eventually the client canned the project and we all walked away because the
> system doesn't work anywhere near as well as Microsoft Word (for example, it
> cannot merge pictures at all....) and it requires on-going commitment of a
> BA, a Coder and a Consultant for the life of the system!
>
> Every time those vendors (yeah, it *is* a UK company...) get into a huddle
> with Steve Ballmer at a "Partner Conference" they are going to really lean
> on him not to allow Microsoft Office to get good enough to cut off that
> particular cash cow, which they are hoping to sell to every bank and finance
> company in the world...
>
> Being a smart businessman, Ballmer is going to go back to his Marketing guys
> and say "OK, if we blow away these guys' revenue stream, they will instantly
> find a way to do their thing with open-source. So you tell me how I am
> going to make money by fixing these things, then running the risk of having
> every bank and finance company in the world flip over to a Linux desktop
> running OpenOffice?"
>
> It's not about "the user" and it's not about "the application". It's about
> the MONEY. Shareholder's money. It's about improving the dividend going to
> large pension funds and private capital funds by one tenth of one per cent.
>
> The reason Microsoft is rushing headlong into moving Office into the cloud
> with web versions has nothing to do with pissing off Google (well, maybe a
> little...).
>
> If they succeed, it means they can instantly strip 80 per cent of the
> functionality from Office, then sell it back to the large companies via
> various add-ons and "Consulting Services" provided by "Microsoft Partners".
> It means they instantly get paid for EVERY copy that is in use (all of the
> machinery is on the server, if you don't pay, you can't play...). It means
> the Telcos are instantly Microsoft's best friends (any idea what kind of
> deal Microsoft could do on the Bandwidth to run www.microsoft.com and all of
> Windows Live Services if in return they promised to force everyone who
> wanted to write a "letter to Mom" to expend a megabyte of bandwidth with
> COMCAST?
>
> I have been saying for years "Any fool with a compiler can make software.
> Making money is a completely different ball game."
>
> </Rant>
>
> Cheers
>
> On 4/11/09 10:08 AM, in article elpuPqNXKHA.408.DeleteThis@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl, "Peter
> Jamieson"<pjj.DeleteThis@KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> I wouldn't have posted that particular text previously if I hadn't
>> actually tested at least one merge scenario using Mac Word 2008. As for
>> merge to email, INCLUDEPICTURE in texboxes, or merge on Mac Word 2004, I
>> don't know either. At some point I may try to find out unless someone
>> else does so first.
>>
>> But since one solution was posted here I thought it was worth ensuring
>> that macropod's potentially simpler approach - in the sense that no
>> post-merge updates are required - was also described.
>>
>> The real question is why users have to resort to this kind of
>> workaround. Can you - or anyone else - think of any good technical
>> reasons why MS shouldn't fix the ordinary INCLUDEPICTURE field so that
>> "it just works" ? (And I'm not just talking about the Mac version).
>> Or maybe we should expect that if merging pictures has been made
>> difficult for so-called "security" reasons, a workaround that makes it
>> easy again will be deliberately broken in a future "security" release.
>>
>> Peter Jamieson
>>
>> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>>
>> On 03/11/2009 10:48, John McGhie wrote:
>>> Hi Peter:
>>>
>>> I suspect the issue is that INCLUDEPICTURE needs updating to cause it to
>>> actually retrieve the picture.
>>>
>>> You can only pass "text" across the Merge. Which means you can pass the
>>> fully-qualified path into the INCLUDEPICTURE field. But you still have to
>>> update the INCLUDEPICTURE field to make it actually retrieve the picture.
>>>
>>> That would be fine if you were merging to print: you could close the re-open
>>> the document, and if you included the /d switch to prevent embedding, Word
>>> would be forced to go get the picture.
>>>
>>> But if you are merging to email, I am not sure that it would actually
>>> update.
>>>
>>> Sorry: I haven't tested it.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/11/09 9:08 PM, in article OcjZf2GXKHA.3720.DeleteThis@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl, "Peter
>>> Jamieson"<pjj.DeleteThis@KillMAPSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't know whether the following will help you, given the "pictures in
>>>> text box" scenario, but in a later conversation we had...
>>>>
>>>> -----------------
>>>> However, you will probably be better off using macropod's construction
>>>> to ensure that you do not have to update the picture results, i.e.
>>>> something along the lines of
>>>>
>>>> { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } }
>>>>
>>>> and to ensure that the INCLUDEPICTURE fields are removed post-merge, you
>>>> can try
>>>>
>>>> { IF { INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } {
>>>> INCLUDEPICTURE { IF TRUE "{ MERGEFIELD mypath }" } } }
>>>>
>>>> - both of those seem to work on Mac Word 2008 as well, and that probably
>>>> means they'll work on Word 2004 too.
>>>> -----------------
>>>>
>>>> (If it works, it should also work with paths constructed from a mix of
>>>> literal text and fields, such as
>>>> "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/{ MERGEFIELD Photo })
>>>>
>>>> Peter Jamieson
>>>>
>>>> http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
>>>>
>>>> On 03/11/2009 01:32, John Roberts wrote:
>>>>> Thanks to posts by Chetan Tolla and John McGhie in this forum about a
>>>>> year ago (links below), I figured out how to insert images in a
>>>>> catalog I'm creating using the Mail Merge Manager tools.
>>>>>
>>>>> { INCLUDE PICTURE "/Users/john/Folder/Folder/Photos/ForCatalog/
>>>>> { MERGEFIELD Photo }" \* MERGEFORMAT }
>>>>>
>>>>> is what I have in the text box where I want the image to appear. And
>>>>> the first image in the catalog did appear, but it appeared on every
>>>>> page, rather than continuing to pull each image based on its filename
>>>>> across the 130+ pages of the catalog. Chetan mentioned the need to
>>>>> "don't forget to Cmd+A then Fn+F9 to update all fields in the
>>>>> resulting doc" but that was missing a key piece of information.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's what I did to make it work.
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) Go to the new, merged document, and select all (Cmd-A).
>>>>> 2) Go to the Edit menu, and choose Links...
>>>>> 3) In the Links window, you should see the proper source files and
>>>>> Type is Graphic. On _this_ screen, select all in the listing (I used
>>>>> the mouse and shift-clicked on the bottom entry in the list after
>>>>> scrolling down). Then hit Update Now, which is the top right button in
>>>>> the Links menu.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sharing this here for the next soul who wastes hours chasing it down.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks again to Chetan and John for getting me 95% of the way there.
>>>>>
>>>>> John
>>>>>
>>>>> LINKS
>>>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/20
>>>>> 08
>>>>> -09/msg00268.html
>>>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/20
>>>>> 08
>>>>> -09/msg00283.html
>>>>> http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Mac/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/20
>>>>> 08
>>>>> -09/msg00372.html
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
>>> matters unless you intend to pay!
>>>
>>> John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
>>> McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
>>> Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
>>> +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name
>>>
>>>
>
>
> --
>
> This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
> matters unless you intend to pay!
>
> John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
> McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
> Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
> +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name
>
>