posted on May 4, 2005 05:33:45 AM new
I just discovered that I could download all PayPal payments received within a given time period. Is there a way to merge some of those fields (Shipping Info, Item Title and Item Number) in a Word Doc?
Currently I copy and paste this information from PayPal onto my packing slip (5 to a page), then I print envelopes using the Word "tools" menu. If I could eliminate the copy and paste stage I would save HOURS of time/week.
I have Office 2000 suite (Word, Excel)...when I tried "Mail Merge" (I thought that was how this is done but have never done it before) I couldn't even find the file I downloaded from PayPal to use as source! Does anyone have the time to explain this to a computer illiterate (though trainable)?? Does anyone do something like this to process payments? Thanks in advance!
This is all my packing slip says:
John Doe
Street Anywhere
Town anywhere State Zip
Country
Item Id# Item Title
Thanks for your order and for paying so promptly! I have left positive feedback for you and hope you will do the same for me. It is a pleasure doing business with you! I hope you enjoy your card!
posted on May 4, 2005 08:35:19 AM new
Hi Neglus, I looked into this for you as I used to be an 'ahem' secretary and knew how to manipulate the mail merge in word...but boy have they changed the simplicity of it!
Anyhow, what you need to do is, download your pp history to a csv file, then save that as an excel file (.xls) in your my documents folder. okay?
Are you trying to do envelopes or a form letter/shipping page?
If envelopes, click to set up in wizard and. continue to follow blue wizard links, click select recipants and then under browse, find your .xls file.
at this point you;ll see your data from the .xls file. click okay.
Now this part is where is gets tricky. You'll need to have your mail merge toolbar open. You'll want to go to the 10th icon on the toolbar it appears as two papers and two red arrows. Its called the match fields icon. click it open to "match fields" then go down the list on the right hand side and select with the drop-down, the paypals(excels)field headers to match off the word headers on the left hand side. example: for the city field in word - youll see on the drop down in the box where it says "towncity" because thats the column header supplied by paypal. You can use any other field you want for the item name and title - just remember which one you used.
Now go back to the mail merge toolbar and click on the sixth icon which is insert merge fields. Insert the fields you want to output, name, city, state, etc. You might have to physically add some returns to manipulate where you want the data to wind up. But once you get all your fields inserted, then click on the tool bar again and click the "merge to a new document" icon (which is like the 4th one from the END of the toolbar.) You can merge directly to print, but you might want to see how they look first.
It will ask what records you want. Click all records or select the ones you want. You should now see your envelopes with the inserted data in them.
You will have to play around with it a bit.
But once you get it set up, it should be alot easier than the way youre currently doing it copying and pasting all the data.
Hope that helps. LOL!!! I am laughing because I thought I was ready to go back to work, but damn it took me a while to work through this and I'm pretty sure I am doing it in the most simplistic (hardest) way. LOL!!! I think if you have all the fields set up right, you can just use the insert address block icon. But I just messed with it a bit. It got me mad because I know I knew how to do this at one time!! So you presented me a challange this morning
As I said, you will have to play around with it a bit, but should help alot with your envelope printing once you get it working.
posted on May 4, 2005 09:07:25 AM new
Thanks DB! I am trying to get scanning done so I can list my european postcards but I will play around with it tonight - I am sure I will have questions LOL ... can I also import the address etc and item # & title on that little packing slip (i put 5 on one page) shown above? THis should save me SOOO much time as I ship about 150 PayPal packages a week and that's just too many unless I can get part of it STREAMLINED!! My daughter is coming home from college in a week or so to help but in the meantime I am FRAZZLED!
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posted on May 4, 2005 09:36:33 AM new
Neglus,I get frazzled just trying to pack and ship about 6-10 items a week!! But I sell all different things and each shipment is its own creation (in my mind anyway) and it probably doesnt help that I cheap-out on boxes and packing materials only because I can't store 50 different sizes of boxes here, etc. I seem to do it all on a wing and a prayer as I go,..but I exhaust myself with the whole process sometimes, too. So I can only imagine what others like yourself are doing.
Yes, you can do the packing slip and even just insert the text of your "thank you" line to automatically appear on every completed merged data sheet/packing list. The thing to remember with mail merge is: you have your form, your data, and then the merged document of the two. Just put your "thankyou for" line in the form of the document. (It stays there sorta like how the TOS is stored to show up on every auction.)
Good luck!
posted on May 4, 2005 10:17:09 AM new
DB - I am very lucky that my shipping is more or less uniform - and easy. It's just the preparation in getting payment information and then finding the dang cards (some of them have been in my store for 2 years!) to ship that takes the time. I dream about a machine where you key in the ebay item number and the card pops out! (kind of like a juke box LOL) I suppose there isn't much need for a machine like that ...SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I guess I will have to streamline in other ways - this might be the ticket!
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posted on May 5, 2005 07:02:20 AM new
Got it to work DB - doesn't work so well for multiple items - must be the reason Vendio can't pick up multiple payments either...but otherwise great! Thanks!
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