If Steve Jobs would still be Alive, I’m sure he will be furious!!! Why has Apple decided to remove the Mail Merge feature from Pages & Numbers?
Is there a way to use the mail merge function (with the latest version of pages)?
Thank you!!!
—–
ILAN
MacMost Q&A Forum • View All Forum Questions • Ask a Question
Mail Merge With Pages and Numbers?
Comments: 11 Responses to “Mail Merge With Pages and Numbers?”
Comments Closed.
Actually, I couldn't disagree with you more. Sorry.
The Mail Merge feature of Pages was not carried to the complete overhaul of Pages back in 2013. So it has been gone for a while now.
Apple has tended to move away from dying technologies quickly. They abandoned serial connections in favor of USB first. They stopped putting optical drives in Macs years ago (DVDs are standard definition not HD).
Mail Merge is paper. The future is paperless, right? Email, eBooks, PDFs, messages and shared documents.
Jobs loved the iPod, wanted the web to be in our pocket on the iPhone, and imagined the iPad was back in the 80s. I don't think he would care about a feature that allows people to print and send mass paper mail.
I would encourage you to look for a better way as well. Is there some other method of accomplishing your goal without printing identical personalized pieces of paper?
Perhaps if you described what it is you are trying to do, I can help point you in the right direction.
Thank you Garry!
I have to sell 300 parking spaces and also rent 250 spaces (total 550 spaces). I have built a table in numbers to use as a database for all the stock of parking spaces and gather the info per buyer/tenant I need to fill in the contract. For each transaction I must print in paper the contract so it will be signed as required by law. The easy solution is to buy Microsoft Office but I don't have it. What do you suggest?
Wow. Fascinating. I love hearing about tasks like this -- ones that are so different than my use of computers.
Well, getting Office is one way to go. $100/year I think. I think you can also do this with Google Docs, which would be free. But I've never tried. There are some database apps in the Mac App Store that might do this too.
You could always just use the old Pages and old Numbers for this. But one day they will no longer work on newer Macs, so best to find a new solution if you need to do this regularly.
I too miss mail merge, I used it for docs like estimates, invoices and call sheets. Usually these were kept and sent via email as digital items. Certainly they could printed but most never were unless required by a client. The paper version was also an excellent backup.
I have kept the old iWorks on my computer and have multiple templates that are now version specific. It works but would be so much better if the new version had included mail merge.
FYI
The reason that I liked it was due to my dyslexia and poor typing skills, dragging a contact from my address book to a merge field means that the data is correct if I entered it correctly in the address book.
Gary, when you say this: "Mail Merge is paper. The future is paperless, right? … Is there some other method of accomplishing your goal without printing identical personalized pieces…" it makes me think that you do not understand how mail merge is used in the legal and commercial worlds. The function is misnamed, because "merge" is really used for automatic document assembly by creating conditional branching of to build documents covering numerous differing circumstances, not identical papers!
Nate: I think I do understand though. Everyone gets the same document except maybe their name is on it, or name, address and other info. But that doesn't matter as the idea is that it is physical paper, not electronic. I know that some legal and commercial uses for paper still exist, but more and more things are done without paper nowadays. I am simply saying that Apple tends to move toward that future when decided on which features to include in software.
Thanks for your reply, Gary but use of merge in business and law is as relevant to electronic documents as it is to paper. Merge allows automated creation of individualized complex documents with multiple levels of if/then clauses for thousands of different factual situations because the DATA document info sets off triggers in the WORD document which do not merely insert ID info but also which paragraphs are inserted into the document and which words and sentences are included or excluded.
(cont'd) No two documents coming out of a merge process have the same length or read the same. This is how merge has been used for years now. It has not been limited to cookie-cutting since the late ‘80s-early ‘90s.
That is why I feel Apple is making a big mistake when it dumbs down perfectly functional Mac apps which users have been dependent upon and forces them to go back to Microsoft apps because making the switch costs Mac users numerous of hours of disruption and needless resentment.
Nate: Yes, but you can see now how you are talking about something highly professional and well beyond what the typical user would need. There are pro tools for this: Microsoft Word, of course, and perhaps other tools specific to different fields. If Apple included every pro feature like this into Pages it would be as complex and intimidating as Word is. I think Apple intends to provide good tools for typical users that are easy to learn and use, and then let other software vendors provide specific pro tools for specific uses.
The problem is not with failing to add pro tools. The problem is with including tools which Mac users become dependent upon in their use of their Macs, and then pulling the rug out from under these Mac users by deleting existing tools from so-called "upgrades" of their software, causing a lot of needless grief and expense for loyal Mac users. I am baffled by such a strategy. Amen.