Double Sided Mail Merge Alignment

[merlinof2]

I've searched the forums and cannot find this exact problem, although I'm sure I'm not the only one to attempt this. I'm sending out Avery 8387 postcards with mail merge information on both sides of the postcard. I've created each side as a separate document.

Side one of the post card is the address of the vendor I'm sending the address change to, this is document 1.
Side two of the post card is the information such as our account number, secondary account number and the DBA they know us as, this is document 2.

It all prints fine, BTW, mail merge in OOo is a piece of cake, except for one minor issue. The addressee and the side two information is not aligned. That is, looking at the front of the post card in the upper left is say, Addressee1, but if you flip the post card over, the corresponding information for Addressee1 is on the back side of Addressee2.

Is there a special formatting command or magic wand buried somewhere in OOo to circumvent this issue? Creating a 2 page double sided doesn't work as the package is attempting to synchronize all the postcards across both pages.

My last ditch effort is to manually create the postcards across a two page document, creating all of the frames and inserting the data fields, but I'm not even sure that will work.

Please any help on getting the account information for addressee1 to show up on the back of the corresponding postcard.

[TheGurkha]

I think it would be easier to create the fronts and backs as two distinct documents, and then print them as two documents, having flipped the cards over inthe printer.

To save on labels & paper I use a PDF printer driver that allows me to print to a virtual printer that gives me a PDF of the output. If you do this for the fronts and backs, and then print from the PDFs when you are happy with the layout you should be fine. There are many of these types of PDF 'printer driver' utilities, but I use: PrimoPDF.

[merlinof2]

I understand what you're saying, but these are dynamic documents, I'm printing over 320 of these postcards, and they have to be a mail merge type of document in order to utilize the database. A PDF simply won't work. They are currently, two separate and distinct documents, aptly named "side one" and "side two", but I can't get them to line up with their corresponding addresses on the mail merge output.

I'm assuming there's a type of formatting instruction I can utilize, or Z-Order change in the printing to get the info for Addressee1 on the back of the Addressee1 card.

thanks...

[TheGurkha]

Yes, what I mean is the PDFs are created out of the dynamic mail merge process - instead of going to the printer it goes to 2 PDF files. You can then check them for alignment before printing them.

It was just an idea. It might not suit your needs.

[merlinof2]

Appreciate the help, but it still can't solve the issue. What I'm printing on was the Avery 8387 Postcard template, 4 cards to a sheet in landscape mode. Upper left is One, Upper right is Two, Lower left is Three, Lower right is Four. What happens is that Address One on the front winds up with Information Two on the back.

To solve the issue would be to somehow tell OOo to print the labels (postcards) backwards from right to left in order to have them match up. BTW, Word cannot do this either.

I wound up just creating a two page (letter, portrait) document, with the address at the bottom 1/3 of page one and the account information on page two. Then I folded the sheet with the address only showing and mailed that. Kludge, but effective...

thanks again.