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Switched! Now I need serious help!

P

possible switch

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 8, 2003
36
0
Hey everyone! I just got my 15" iMac today! It's beautiful! I love it! I'll never use a PC again if I can help it! I do have one MAJOR problem though.

I maintain a Microsoft Access database for two organizations on campus, and I used mail merge quite often on my PC to send mass mailings. Well, there's no Access in Office X for Mac. I can't figure out a way to make this happen using Excel either, although I've heard it's possible somehow. Does anyone know how to do this? This is so majorly important. I have no idea what to do. I'd hate to have to get out my crappy PC and mess with it just to send an email message to 150 people. Oh, and I don't want them in my address book. That's not an option. What should I do?
 
I am sorry I can not help. But, I wanted to say Welcome. I am sure you will definitely love your mac. Anyone out there know how?? TTT!
 
I'd like to avoid Virtual PC. Surely there's some easy way to do this. Wait! Does anyone know of a free list manager on the internet? Mass mailer? I can't remember them. I may have to do a quick search!

On my PC, I typed in Word, selected the database, merged, and sent. Simple. I wish it would work from Excel! Agh!
 
In Word, I did a search for Mail Merge under the assistant. I clicked the top link and it comes up with another link talking about setting up a data merge. I think in there it tells you what you are looking for. Hope this helps.
 
do you have Appleworks? it might have been installed on your iMac... it's Apple's consumer suite. If you have it, you can merge a text document with a database--

if you don't have it, it's pretty handy... not a terrible price... i much prefer it to office, but i don't need all of the features i suppose...

pnw
 
Yeah, paul is right, and if your iMac is new, it definitely has AppleWorks on it. If it is a refurb, you might have it on a software restore disk somewhere. I know that AppleWorks has that ability, but I'm not sure of the compatability with the Excel files as far as importing them. If it gives you too many problems, you could try Think Free Office.

Regards,
Gus
 
If you got MS Office with your iMac, or even AppleWorks, check in the help to see how to do a mail merge. Then find out what source files they need and can import data from.

After you get that info, if they can't directly import from an .MDB files (Access dbase file), take out your old PC and do one of the following:

1) Export the dbase to a format that your mail merge app can read and then do the merge.

2) Send your mail merge from your PC until you convert the dbase to a Mac based dbase application.

3) Get VPC for this occasional thing :D
 
Re: Switched! Now I need serious help!

Originally posted by possible switch
Hey everyone! I just got my 15" iMac today! It's beautiful! I love it! I'll never use a PC again if I can help it! I do have one MAJOR problem though.

I maintain a Microsoft Access database for two organizations on campus, and I used mail merge quite often on my PC to send mass mailings. Well, there's no Access in Office X for Mac. I can't figure out a way to make this happen using Excel either, although I've heard it's possible somehow. Does anyone know how to do this? This is so majorly important. I have no idea what to do. I'd hate to have to get out my crappy PC and mess with it just to send an email message to 150 people. Oh, and I don't want them in my address book. That's not an option. What should I do?
Click to expand...

-switch

Welcome aboard!

If we're talking Excel v.x and Word v.x, well you should be familiar with the Word from Excel aspect. As for extraction, here's what you do (I'm doing this from memory, so I might miss a detail Email me to discuss in greater depth):

1. In the Finder "Go", "Connect to Server..." to the machine with the .mdb files.

2. Drive Icon should appear on your Mac's desktop.

3. In Excel, go the the menu "Data", "Get External Data...", "New Database Query..."

4. Choose The appropriate Access DB type.

5. Browse to the location of the .mdb file of choice.

6. Assuming you have a table or querty within Access ready for output for a mail merge, select it.

7. Your Excel spreadsheet should pull in what you need.

8. Mess around with Word to finish up the connections.

9. Email me for further help :D

This should not only work with the Mac (you need to install MS Query to get it to work), but maintain the legacy system in it's current form. Also, you should be able to automate this with the Excel Spreadsheet. Meaning that every time you wish to do a mail merge with Word, it calls Excel, Excel then refreshed behind the scenes with the most up-to-date data from the .mdb file, and passes it on to word, all without butchering your original Access data structure.

Go to here for the horse's mouth: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/produc...mbfpath=howto&embfname=xl_getexternaldata.asp

Additionally. I understand your "I'll never use a PC again if I can help it!", well every tool has it's use, so I think you'll find yourself using both for what they do best, and leaving it at that. I sure did.
 
Thanks for the advice. I figured it out in Word. It's just a tad bit different than on my PC, but not surprisingly a little easier too. I love this machine!

Okay, here's a question that's got me confused too. When I shut off my mac, or leave Safari or IE for a while, I'll come back and it'll revert to the standard home page (apple.com) even though I've changed the settings to yahoo.com. Why does it keep changing back? How do I make it stay? I know how to get to apple quite well. If they'd put some news, a search engine, weather, and other things like Yahoo has on their page, I'd consider keeping it as my homepage.

One more. I want my pdf files that I download to open in Adobe Acrobat. They like to open in Preview however. How do I stop this?


Thanks for all your help! I'm starting to get the hang of all of this!
 
Originally posted by possible switch
Thanks for the advice. I figured it out in Word. It's just a tad bit different than on my PC, but not surprisingly a little easier too. I love this machine!

Okay, here's a question that's got me confused too. When I shut off my mac, or leave Safari or IE for a while, I'll come back and it'll revert to the standard home page (apple.com) even though I've changed the settings to yahoo.com. Why does it keep changing back? How do I make it stay? I know how to get to apple quite well. If they'd put some news, a search engine, weather, and other things like Yahoo has on their page, I'd consider keeping it as my homepage.

One more. I want my pdf files that I download to open in Adobe Acrobat. They like to open in Preview however. How do I stop this?


Thanks for all your help! I'm starting to get the hang of all of this!
Click to expand...

When you first launch Acrobat, it should prompt you as to which PDF reader to use each time. If it no longer presents you with that prompt, I'd suggest upgrading to the very latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader and see if that revives the prompt. If that still doesn't work, hit up the Acrobat Preferences...

You might want to consult the Internet panel in System Preferences for setting a system-wide homepage for your browsers. They might keep reverting to apple.com because that's what's assigned in the Web tab of the Internet panel.

Hope that's helpful.
 
Welcome!
To open up all files of one kind with another App than the current one, select the file, press command-I (Or go to the File menu and select get information), select the app of choice in the "open with..." section and click on the "Change All"-button. So if you select Acrobat Reader, Preview's not gonna open pdfs anymore :)
 
Okay, I did the whole system preferences thing to make yahoo.com my default homepage, but if safari is closed out, it restarts at that home.netscape.com or whatever. I just checked IE, and it goes to apple.com. Does anyone else have this problem?
 
Also, my printer is INCREDIBLY slow on my iMac, but it was really fast on my PC. Is this just the nature of the beast, or do I need to do something other than just plug it in?
 
Originally posted by possible switch
Also, my printer is INCREDIBLY slow on my iMac, but it was really fast on my PC. Is this just the nature of the beast, or do I need to do something other than just plug it in?
Click to expand...

I don't know if you can change the print engine in Print Center, but CUPS (Common Unix Printing System, assuming that's what it uses) it really freakin' slow everywhere. If you can change the print engine somehow, then that may fix it, otherwise, just deal.
 
I fixed it. Normal Page to Draft Page in Print settings. Fun. I still can't get my homepage to stay at yahoo though.
 
Originally posted by possible switch
Okay, I did the whole system preferences thing to make yahoo.com my default homepage, but if safari is closed out, it restarts at that home.netscape.com or whatever. I just checked IE, and it goes to apple.com. Does anyone else have this problem?
Click to expand...

the browsers might be set to ignore the system preferences. In safari, go to "Preferences" and then click "general". You can choose another page, decide to start up with a blank page, show bookmarks, or the page you last visited.

:)
pnw
 
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