Postcard Exchange Round 17 Comments and Feedback

Hi all,

As in previous rounds, let us collect comments, feedback, being-late-announcements and my-cards-are-in-the-mail-messages in this thread.

As organizer I want to welcome all the people new to the exchange and I am glad about all the those known from previous rounds.

I hope this will be fun.

Cheers
Ruediger


Here is the list of participants again:

Allen Friday (MAX)
aluk (30)
Anke Drewitz (30)
bdial (MAX)
bkalafut (10)
Black Dog (MAX)
bpaties (30)
Buster6X6 (40)
bwakel (20)
BWKate (30)
charlotte (20)
Christopher Walrath (32)
cloudhands (25)
crispinuk (MAX)
drpsilver (MAX)
DrZish (30)
Eric Mac (25)
Fleath (MAX)
FotoGys (25)
Gennari (25)
gordrob (30)
hoffy (10)
johnnywalker (20)
Jon King (MAX)
jst (15)
Kraker (25)
KWhitmore (30)
labcoat (15)
lorirfrommontana (MAX)
markrewald (50)
MattKing (24)
mckenna (30)
Mick Fagan (MAX)
mike c (20)
Mike Wilde (30)
mooseontheloose (MAX)
OMU (20)
ozphoto (25)
paul_c5x4 (10)
Pete H (MAX)
Peter Markowski (30)
Rlibersky (30)
rmann (25)
Rob Skeoch (MAX)
Roger Bulcock (MAX)
rst (MAX)
rtbadman (MAX)
sly (MAX)
syzygy_moi (MAX)
Síle (MAX)
Tim Gray (MAX)
tocalosh (50)
Wayne Frederick (20)
Wolfgang Moersch (MAX)

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I buy stamps. If my patience holds out, I mail on Friday.

Hi everyone, I received the address list today. Can anyone tell me how to import the "line notation" of the address list into Excel. I'm signed up for the max and am hoping I won't have to hand address my postcards.
Thanks, Roger

Ah, that's part of the 'romance'. Spent an hour before work this morning doing just that.

Was that an hour hand addressing postcards or trying to import the address data into Excel?
Roger

rtbadman said:

Hi everyone, I received the address list today. Can anyone tell me how to import the "line notation" of the address list into Excel. I'm signed up for the max and am hoping I won't have to hand address my postcards.
Thanks, Roger

Click to expand...

I don't use Excel, but I do use the mail merge functions in WordPerfect. I just use the search and replace functions to replace the semi-colons and line breaks with the appropriate field and record delimiters, and then copy the result into a data file.

Once you've done it once, you can re-use your work in subsequent exchanges.

Hope this helps.

Matt

02 June 2009

rtbadman said:

Hi everyone, I received the address list today. Can anyone tell me how to import the "line notation" of the address list into Excel. I'm signed up for the max and am hoping I won't have to hand address my postcards.
Thanks, Roger

Click to expand...

Rtbadman:

I do use MS Excel to create a data file fro MS Word "mail merge". What you need to do is the following ...

1. Copy the "line format" as a *.txt file using Notepad or like text editor.
2. Import this text file into Excel selecting semicolon [;] as the delimiter.
3. Format the text fields in Excel to what you want to use in your labels.
4. Copy this section of the Excel file into MS Word, and format as a table that can be used in the "mail merge" feature of Word.

Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions.

Regards,
Darwin

rtbadman said:

Hi everyone, I received the address list today. Can anyone tell me how to import the "line notation" of the address list into Excel. I'm signed up for the max and am hoping I won't have to hand address my postcards.

Click to expand...

Hi Roger,

Like Matt, I also do not use Excel and to be honest, I never used it. I have once imported all the postcards addresses into my address book app on the Mac and use those to mail merge. For every round I have to check for address changes and to add the new addresses (20 new participants this round!).

But since it is installed on my work PC I just tried to import the data. Here is how it goes. To just import the address data into an Excel worksheet copy the line notation into a separate file. Use a real text editor for this and not a word processing program. I use Emacs on all operating systems I know. On Windows Notepad might be an option. Then in Excel go to menu 'Data'->'Get External Data'->'Import Text File' A file open dialog opens and you select the file containing the line notation. Press the 'Import' button. Now you end up in the 'Text Import Wizard': Select 'Delimited' and click 'Next'. On page two of the wizard select 'Semicolon' and deselect 'Tab'. You will see part of the file in the 'Preview' now already sorted into columns. Now click 'Finish' and Excel will ask you if it should open a new worksheet or if the data should be imported into the current worksheet. Do whatever is appropriate for you.

Hey and now I have found a simpler solution. Do a copy/paste of the line notation from your browser window into the existing Excel worksheet. So you end up having the data in multiple rows, but in only one column. Now select the column and go to 'Data'->'Text to Columns ...' You will end up in the same wizard as before now working on the column and not a file. Continue as above.

So now it is up to you how to handle the data in Excel.

Cheers
Rüdiger

Ah, Darwin, you were faster than me. Anyway, I have the import described in more detail.

Cheers
Rüdiger

address data to Excel

I found an easier way, just copy the data from the browser and paste it into an Excel sheet, than you get the data in one column, select this column and then go to > data > text in columns; than select the Semicolon as seperator, voilá, text is in columns. So I'm not sure, since I'm using a german Excel, that you can find the same way, but I'm hopeful

Anke

Anke Drewitz said:

I found an easier way, just copy the data from the browser and paste it into an Excel sheet, than you get the data in one column, select this column and then go to > data > text in columns; than select the Semicolon as seperator, voilá, text is in columns. So I'm not sure, since I'm using a german Excel, that you can find the same way, but I'm hopeful

Anke

Click to expand...

Yes, it is the same way in the English version of Excel. For me the story would end here since I do not know how to create labels out of Excel if all the rows have a different number of relevant columns.

Cheers
Rüdiger

Well, I wrote mine out by hand last night. But ... I forgot to bring them with me today, so they won't be in the post until tomorrow. :rolleyes:

Pete H said:

Well, I wrote mine out by hand last night. But ... I forgot to bring them with me today, so they won't be in the post until tomorrow. :rolleyes:

Click to expand...

Good so because I will send out an address correction tomorrow.

Cheers
Rüdiger

Wow, thanks everyone, it worked. Now the next hurdle is to print the labels from the data in Excel. I have done this before so I should be able to do it again right. Anyway more important things, I have choosen an image and have my postcard paper. Time to get printing. Thanks again.
Roger

I addressed mine by hand yesterday. Then I had my daughter take a look at them and pick out ones that she thought I could print better (ie don't send this one out mom). So today I will reprint and readdress 10. I guess I should have waited to address them. At least she only found 10! I think I nearly went through a box of 100 postcards to get my finished 53!!! I'll have to get more postcard paper and hope I do a better job this next time.
Lori

The ten that I printed this morning are so much better than the ones I had done before. Now I want to re print everything!!! I won't. Just remember I'm extremely new at this! Oh and I counted. I only have 15 postcards left out of 100!!! I will have to do better on the next exchange or think about a new hobby! No, this is too much fun! Lori

Lori, sound like your are doing fine. I printed post cards for a recent exchange and which turned out good. Then decided to print the image on fiber for a friend and after looking at the negatives realized I had a better negative. So the fiber prints turned out even better. Oh well. The nice thing is that postcard paper is relatively inexpensive and these exchanges get you in the darkroom printing. Plus I'm starting to look forward to checking the mail!!!!
Roger

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Mine were addressed by hand. I purchased stamps this afternoon. I'll wait for Rudy's address change and then send them out tomorrow.

I've got all but 5 left to print and then address,then the BOX,(mail box that is).

mike c.

The address corrections are sent. If you do not have the corrected address on your list, then just forget about it.

For the impatient: We start NOW!

Cheers
Rüdiger

And all that is heard was the great roar of postcard engines flying threw the mail !!!! thought I'd add a little more excitement at the start line.

mike c.

Yes! They're in the post ...

ohhh dear. After reading Lori's exploits (I am a total newbie to printing as well, let along a post card exchange), I'm starting to feel a little nervous.....

Luckily we have a bit of time.....and a long weekend to finally get this printing malarky down to an acceptable level!

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Mine are in the post as well. I'm one of the eager beavers. Hope you guys like it. If anyone on my list does not receive by the 24th PM me and I'll resend. That should enough time I should think.

Yeah! I'll get mine out today also! This is so much fun! Hoffy don't worry about it. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. My children are trying to break me of it but I think I have passed the affliction on! Can't wait to see all the postcards. I'll be gone for a week so I should have some to come home to!
Lori