Using Mail Merge to print 2-sided name tags, same name on each side

Thank you all for your suggestions.

In the end I used this script I found on a copy of my Excel datasource file.

Then I performed another mail merge, so I had two copies of the name tag labels, one "front," one "back."

I had to move a few of the labels so everything lined up properly, but this helped cut the work by quite a bit, and hopefully I'll get better at it.

(front)

(back)

Then duplex printed each sheet, manually flipping the label sheets because my lame printer doesn't do double-sided printing.

So I wanted to put my solution for future generations. And I'll definitely look at the Merge tools from Doug Robbins.

Try the Duplex Merge facility on my Merge Tools Add-in that is contained in the MERGE TOOLS ADD-IN.zip file that you can download from:

https://mergetoolsaddin.com/

Extract the files from the archive and read the:

“READ ME – Setting up and using the Merge Tools Add-in.pdf

to see how to install and use the various tools.

Using those tools, it is possible to perform the following types of merge that cannot be done with Mail Merge “out-of-the-box”:

• Merge to e-mail messages either with or without attachments, with the documents created by the merge being sent as either Word or PDF attachments or as the body of the e-mail message .  The email messages can, if necessary, also be sent to CC and BCC addresses and the subject of the message can include data from a field in the data source.
• Merge to individual documents in either Word or PDF format with the filenames being supplied by the data in one of the fields in the data source
• Many to One type merges, which can be used for creating documents such as invoices where there are multiple records in the data source that have common data in one of the fields
• Merging to a document that will include a chart that is unique to each record in the data source
• Merging a document with Content Controls
• Merging a document that contains Legacy FormFields
• Duplex Merges
• Merging to a printer that will collate and staple the output created from each record in the data source.

The requirements for using the system are:

• The mail merge main document must be of the Letters type, though that does not mean that the output cannot be sent as an e-mail message where relevant.
• For the Many To One, Merge with Attachments and Merge to Individual Docs utilities, the data source may be either a table or query in an Access database, or in the form of an Excel worksheet. For the Chart Merge utility, see the Mail Merging with Charts document that is included in the Merge Tools Add-in Zip file for additional requirements for the data source for use with that utility
• For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the field names must be in the first row of the worksheet and there must be a field name in all of the cells in that row that are within the range of columns that contain the data.
• For both types of data source, the field names must contain only alphanumeric characters (No @,#,$,%,&,(,), etc) and the field names must not start with a numeric character (0-9). The number of characters in the field names, including spaces, must not be more than 40.

There is no simple way to do this.

The way I ordinarily do something like this is to print two badges and put them both in the holder.

That is, to do it manually.

Otherwise, you will need two layouts and chances of messing up a whole sheet is high.

How many badges are we talking about?

Hello,

I tried looking at this, but I'm confused as how it works.

I'll look at it again.

Thanks!

We are talking about 100 badges for the current event.

But of course, that means twice the supplies.

But you're right, that would be the easiest way.