Creating Directories

The only real difference between the way Word handles form letters and the way it handles merged directories (in pre–Word 2003 versions, they were called catalogs) lies in the way Word uses page breaks. In a form letter, Word inserts a page break (actually, a Next Page section break) after it finishes processing a record from the data source. In a directory, Word doesn’t add page breaks; as a result, one record follows another in the finished document.

If you use Excel to create a membership list for a school club and save it as an Excel table, you can print a custom report in which several records appear on a page in a format like those used by a paper-based personal organizer. Here’s how you do it: