Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!pacbell!att!cbnewsd!rlneal
From: rlneal@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (r.l.neal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Question for Word-Perfect users
Keywords: Word-Perfect & mailmerge
Message-ID: <13308@cbnewsd.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 Feb 90 22:24:04 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 37

I don't want to start another Word Perfect / MS-Word
war but to this novice Word Perfect user, it seems that
MS-Word handles mail-merges better.  With Word Perfect,
the only way I can separate fields and records is with
^R and ^E (special characters).  If I type the names
and addresses into a file, then it works great.  But if I
want to use a database, Power-Base for example, and create
a mailmerge file, then I cannot create those special
characters to delimit the fields and records.  Power-Base
only allows non-special characters as field and record
separaters.

    MS-Word, on the other hand, allows you use commas or
semi-colons as field separators, and newline as record
separators.  These are easily created by the database.

    Word Perfect does have the nicety of allowing you to
create your mailmerge output in file, whereas MS-Word will
only output the mailmerge to a printer.

But my problem is, that my friend for whom I am trying to
set this up, has only Word Perfect.  Is there a better way
in Word Perfect to do this?

Perhaps, I should use PFS-Write/PFS-File which is integrated.
You do not have to create mailmerge files, it just uses the
database.  The trouble is, I don't like the reports created
by PFS-File (or Professional File).

Thanks in advance for any input you might have.  I hope no
one misses my question in all the verbiage.

<standard disclaimer here>

                             Bob Neal  @ AT&T  IW  979-1090
                                       att!ihlpe!rlneal
                                       att!cbnewsd!rlneal