As membership director for a nonprofit organization, monthly I print and mail membership cards. To do so I use the same Excel spreadsheet for the recipient list for the cards themselves, a cover letter, an envelope, and often a donation thank-you letter.

For each document, I need to go through the entire process of specifying the recipient list:

1. Click "Select Recipients"
2. Click "Use an existing list"
3. Choose a data file—I always have to click the folder drop-down because it defaults to "Documents", which I don't use.
4. Navigate to the correct folder and select the spreadsheet
5. Answer "Yes" to open the file if it is from a trusted source
6. Select the appropriate sheet in the workbook

I must be missing something. Isn't there a simple option to select the last used database? I would think it would be the default.

Thanks for your help.

Jim
Word 16 for Mac

Hi!

There is a few things you can do to ease the process.

Your card, cover letter, envelop, etc. aren't they template? If so, when you are in your template, do all the process to connect to the database then save your template. Next time you'll open your template, it will already be connected to the db.

If you can't do that, you can put a shortcut of your Excel file into the default directory Word open to. Next time you'll have to connect to the database, you'll have less steps to do.

Another option is to create an macro that automatically connect to the db. But you must know VBA.

Good luck!

Souriane

Thank you very much for the suggestions. It occurred to me I might be able to solve my problem by using your first suggestion, but was reluctant to do so because every time I update the source data I revise the filename to include the current date, so I can keep track of the latest version. But I think I would be better served to keep the filename (and name of the relevant sheet) constant, and control my versions in some other way.


Thanks again.


Jim