I'm doing a mail merge for a postcard. I plan on fitting four postcards per 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. Since both sides of the postcard have merge fields I have to do the print job in a specific page print order, and this is what I need help with.



A picture's worth a thousand words so here is how the print order needs to be.

Front Side:
https://i.imgsafe.org/b3becb012b.jpg

Back Side:
https://i.imgsafe.org/b3beaefc16.jpg

Notice that when I cut the paper into four postcards postcard one will consist of page 1 and 2, postcard 2 will consist of page 3 and 4, postcard 3 will consist of page 5 and 6, and postcard 4 will consist of page 7 and 8.

Use the Duplex Merge facility on my Merge Tools Add-in.

You can download the MergeTools – 20150422.dotm Add-in that I created from the following page of my One Drive:

http://bit.ly/1hduSCB
Do NOT open the MergeTools – 20150422.dotm file. (There are no user serviceable parts inside and it should NOT be used as the basis for creating your mail merge main document.)
The MergeTools – 20150422.dotm file needs to be saved in the Word Startup folder. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, and 10, the default location for that folder is

C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

If you do not see the AppData folder: -

In Windows 7, - In Windows Explorer, click on the Organize drop down and then on Folder and search options and in the Folder Options dialog, go to the View tab and select the item "Show hidden files, folders, and drives". While there, it is a good idea to uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".

In Windows 8,8.1 or 10, in the File Explorer, click on Options on the View tab of the ribbon and then on the View tab in the dialog that appears and select the item "Show hidden files, folders, and drives". While there, it is a good idea to uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".

The requirements for using the system are:
1. The mail merge main document must be of the Letter type, though that does not mean that the output cannot be sent as an e-mail message.

2. For the Many To One, Merge with Attachments and Merge to Individual Docs utilities, the data source may be either a table or query in an Access database, or in the form of an Excel worksheet and that worksheet must be the first sheet in the Excel workbook. If the data is on some other sheet, you can easily move that sheet so that it is the first sheet in the workbook by clicking on the sheet tab and dragging it to the left. For the Chart Merge utility, download the Mail Merging with Charts document that is also on that page of my OneDrive for additional requirements of the data source for use with that utility


3. For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the field names must be in the first row of the worksheet and there must be a field name in all of the cells in that row that are within the range of columns that contain the data.


4. For both types of data source, the field names must contain only alphanumeric characters (No @,#,$,%,&,(,), etc) and the field names must not start with a numeric character (0-9). The number of characters in the field names, including spaces, must not be more than 40.


5. For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the data must start in the second row of the worksheet and there should be no empty rows within the range of data that is to be processed.


6. If there are multiple addressees in either the To or CC fields of the data source, the email addresses need to be separated by a semi-colon.

NOTE: The MergeTools applications cannot handle “Compound” MergeFields such as the «AddressBlock» or «GreetingLine».Instead of using those fields, you will need to insert the individual merge fields.
You may also want to download:
1. the Merging with Attachments document that is also on that page which explains how the system is used. It is not actually necessary to have separate attachments as the facility can be used to send just the documents created by the merge itself as attachments, either as the body of the message itself or in the form of Word files or .pdf files.


2. the Mail Merging with Charts document that is also on that page. That document explains how you must set up the Excel Data Source and the Mail Merge Main document to be able to execute a merge with a Chart that is unique to each record in the data source.


3. the Using the Many to One Facility document that describes how to use that facility.

Forgive me, but how does this address my issue? I can already merge my contacts. Am I missing something?

As the first line of Doug's reply says - Use the Duplex Mail Merge facility of his merge tools. Alternatively see http://www.gmayor.com/duplex_name_label_merge.htm which adopts a similar approach, or see http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_postcards.htm which employs a different approach to the same end. All these approaches require the merge data to be in Excel format.

__________________
Graham Mayor - MS MVP (Word) (2002-2019)
Visit my web site for more programming tips and ready made processes www.gmayor.com