Fonts in letters

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Kerry Ayres-Smith
Kerry Ayres-Smith
Eighth Anniversary 10 Comments Photogenic 5 Likes
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Good morning,


I'm working on updating our letters that we pull through RE (Mail > Donor Acknowledgment Letters). I have inserted all the merged fields, and when I look at the letter, the font is all the same. However, once I run the letters, the merged fields that it pulls from RE (addressee, address, etc) are in a different font than the body of the letter. Is there a way to change this or do I have to go in manually to each letter once it does the Word Merge and change the font?


Thanks,


Kerry
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  • Kathleen Chavis
    Kathleen Chavis
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Comments Facilitator Level 2 Praiser Level 1
    I had the same issue.  Here is what I did.

    Opened the merged document

    Highlighted the letter

    Selected the Styles and Formatting from the Format menu.  For my version of Word, I used Shift, Ctrl, Alt, S

    Selected Normal formatting for each of the merge fields,

    Re-ran the merge.


    I am having difficulty with the other formatting, if anyone has an answer for that.
  • Kathleen Chavis
    Kathleen Chavis
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Comments Facilitator Level 2 Praiser Level 1



    I had the same issue.  Here is what I did.

    Opened the merged document

    Highlighted the letter

    Selected the Styles and Formatting from the Format menu.  For
    my version of Word, I used Shift, Ctrl, Alt, S

    Selected Normal formatting for each of the merge fields,

    Re-ran the merge.


    I am having difficulty with the other formatting, if anyone has an
    answer for that.








    --

    Kathleen M.
    Chavis

    St. Joseph’s
    Preparatory School

    Development
    Database and Office Administrator

    w: 
    215-978-1991

    kchavis@sjprep.org

     



  • Jennifer Reager
    Jennifer Reager
    Tenth Anniversary 10 Comments 25 Likes Photogenic
    A few years back, we were having so much trouble with margins and fonts and indents and whatnot, and we ended up spending hours on end with support trying to pinpoint the issue. Maybe it was an old version of Word, maybe it was the updates to RE. . .no real resolution.


    Finally we resorted to creating a whole new, fresh group of letters (not necessarily content, just a new group and fresh upload/merge). Took some time on the front end, but we never had those issues again! Good luck.
  • Michelle Collins 2
    Michelle Collins 2
    Ninth Anniversary 10 Comments 25 Likes Facilitator Level 2

    Kathleen Chavis:

    I had the same issue.  Here is what I did.

    Opened the merged document

    Highlighted the letter

    Selected the Styles and Formatting from the Format menu.  For my version of Word, I used Shift, Ctrl, Alt, S

    Selected Normal formatting for each of the merge fields,

    Re-ran the merge.


    I am having difficulty with the other formatting, if anyone has an answer for that.

    Hi there,


    I've been having trouble with formatting as well lately. Just tried this solution and it worked for my sample. :) Fingers crossed that it sticks.


    Thanks Kathleen!

  • Christine Cooke 2
    Christine Cooke 2
    Ancient Membership 1000 Comments 500 Likes Name Dropper

    Kerry Ayres-Smith:

    Good morning,


    I'm working on updating our letters that we pull through RE (Mail > Donor Acknowledgment Letters). I have inserted all the merged fields, and when I look at the letter, the font is all the same. However, once I run the letters, the merged fields that it pulls from RE (addressee, address, etc) are in a different font than the body of the letter. Is there a way to change this or do I have to go in manually to each letter once it does the Word Merge and change the font?


    Thanks,


    Kerry

    In line with what others have mentioned, after awhile it seems that the Acks get corrupted and do not function properly and then at some point possibly not at all.  Been there, done that.  When it starts happening and the changes no longer stay saved and merge properly I suggest just building anew.  Start over.  Yes, time consuming but worth it to do it now rather in when you are the thick of things at the height of year end giving and have to stop and spend half a day setting it all up.
  • Andrew Ludwell
    Andrew Ludwell
    Eighth Anniversary 25 Likes 10 Comments Photogenic
    Hi there!


    Thought I'd try offering a solution to this one, as I have this problem periodically. I find that it mostly relates, for me, to the embedded Word Styles.

    (caveat: before trying this solution, save a copy of the export as a new one and try a few things to see if it works - I'd hate for it to break everything!)


    For a Simple merge document, you'll need to go into the template and make some edits, possibly to Styles.

    Select the entire document (Ctrl + A) before pressing Alt + Space. This resets the fonts etc to the Style "Normal"

    As you probably want to format different lines of text and/or merge fields with different things such as bold, extra spacing on the paragraph, etc., create a new or override an existing style with this new editing.

    Save this and give it a go.


    If you're working with a Conditional Merge, you'll need to change the fonts etc. on the one at the top of the list. So what I mean by that is the first condition that defines which letter is chosen. E.g. for this list: "In Honor Of, In Memory Of, In Celebration Of", the one at the top would be In Honor Of. If you've edited the 'Normal' style of that one, it should have flow down effects onto the other ones.

    This gets confusing when the second one on the list has the same Styles (in name) but they are formatted differently (e.g. fonts). In that case, whatever you've set the first one to will change the ones below it, even though you won't see it when you go in to edit them - you'll only see these flow down effects when you merge.



    Let me know how you go. Sometimes Word and RE just don't like to talk!

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