Computer Apps 101

You remember taking Computer Applications... right?  I'm pretty sure we were required to take it in both junior high and high school, then again in college.  You know, that class where you learn all about how to use Microsoft Office.  Everything from formatting a paragraph in Word to making charts and graphs using data in Excel.  It was an easy-A class for me.  I used to borrow my dad's laptop and make powerpoints for FUN on roadtrips (seriously, how lame is that?  man, I was a nerd!).

Well, I vaguely remembered using Mail Merge to take a list of names (like our guest list) and using that to create labels.  I thought I had it in the bag!

Well, my first problem came when I couldn't figure out where the "Mail Merge" option was in Excel.  Problem solved when I realized you had to use Access.  Easy fix: just copy and paste the list from Excel to Access.  WRONG!  According to Access, my Excel data was "damaged" when I tried to copy the whole thing.  But don't worry, I found a solution... copy and paste them one-by-FREAKIN'-one.  gggrrrr......

So I get that done, then click on Mail Merge and open Word to create my labels.  After playing around with it for a while, I think I finally got it figured out and got my labels all printed, stuck them on the envelopes and stuck them in the mail.  Yes!  DONE!

WRONG... A couple days later, an invited guest randomly popped in my head.  I couldn't remember seeing their name on a label.  So I went back and checked.  Sure enough, no label for them.  They were on my original guess list, but where they should appear in the Access list, there's no # for them.  Access automatically numbers your entries in order of entering them.  Where my missing guests should be, it jumped from 18 to 20.  Crazy.  It skipped a number every time I got the error message too, so I didn't think much about the missing number the first time through the list.

Well, good thing I remembered them!  Just hand-addressed that envelope and sent it off!  Well, I kept coming up with friends and family that I knew were to be invited, but that I didn't remember seeing their address label.  Geez.  Right now we are at 8 invites that didn't make the list.  Guess I'm going to have to go through and verify that everyone who was supposed to get a Save the Date really did get one.  Grrr...

Epic Fail, Mail Merge.  Epic Fail.

Now I just have to figure out how to make it work for our actual invitations!  I already have the labels "designed" in Word.  I figured I'd just have to type (or copy-and-paste) each address from Excel into the document, but maybe I can get mail merge to work if I can make sure the Access file is good first.  Wish me luck!