On 03/31/2017 04:05 PM, John White wrote:
>
> I use lyx and am using it more and more in what I call "mailmerge"
> mode, similar to how I once used mailmerge in Wordstar. Once I have a
> good form document (say a will or a contract) I replace the names
> with, say "@name1" and then I replace all @name1 with the new data,
> e.g. "Judy Jones".
>
>
>
> This works fine, but on longer documents (say a 40 page document)
> with, say @name1 through @name12, it can get a bit confusing. I put
> all the replacement data in a separate lyx file and go back and forth
> to that file until I have made all replacements.
>
>
>
> I use article class.
>
>
>
> Is there perhaps a better layout or class or perhaps something else
> lyx that I should be using?
>
The easiest way to do this would be to use some LaTeX in your LyX
document. Where you now have "@name1" put, say:
\nameone
in ERT. Now in the preamble, say, put:
\def\nameone{Judy Jones}
This is a LaTeX variable, or "macro".
You could also do something like:
\def\nameonef{Judy}
\def\nameonel{Jones}
\def\nameone{\nameonef \nameonel}
and now you have access to first, last, and full names.
You can also put all of that in some separate LyX file, if you like, but
as ERT, and include it at the beginning of the file.
Caveats:
LaTeX does not allow numbers in variable names, only letters (well,
close enough). Hence "one".
You'll have to be careful to avoid naming conflicts with what LaTeX
already predefines. One way to do this is to use names like, e.g.,
\MERGEnameone.
You may run into problems with spaces after such macros. This is because
LaTeX sees the space after the macro as just separating it from what
follows, not as an actual space. You can handle this in a couple ways.
First, in the LyX file, you can do:
\nameone{}
in ERT. Now the braces terminate the macro, and LaTeX will treat a
following space as an actual space. The other option is to use the
xspace package. So the macro gets defined as:
\def\nameone{Judy Jones\xspace}
and you put
\usepackage{xspace}
into the preamble. The \xspace macro adds a space, but only if what
follows isn't punctuation, etc. It isn't perfect, but it usually works.
This is a very simple approach. Try searching "latex mail merge" for
more sophisticated ones.
Richard
