Sorting Labels

Question

I'm an Office 365 user. I have a file of approximately 100 labels that are printed and applied to file folders. The first line on the label is nothing more then the current year (i.e., 2020). The second line contains descriptive information (i.e., Medical/Dental Expenses, etc). I would like to sort all the labels alphabetically by the descriptive information in the second line. I know I could easily do the sort if this was set up as columns. Is there a way to sort label information?

Answer 1

Have you been able to take a look at Graham Mayor's utility to bring your data into Excel where it can be easily sorted?

Here are some Support pages that can help you with a MailMerge problem:

Microsoft MailMerge Resource Center

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Mail-m...

Data Sources

Data Sources You Can Use for a Mail Merge

[https://support.office.com/article/data-sources...](https://support.office.com/article/data-sources-you-can-use-for-a-mail-merge-9de322a6-f0f9-448d-a113-5fab317d9ef4)

Prepare Your Excel Data Source for a Mail Merge

[https://support.office.com/article/prepare-your...](https://support.office.com/article/prepare-your-excel-data-source-for-a-word-mail-merge-2d802b6b-a3a3-43e5-bb76-2cac7c68673e)

Mail Merge Using an Excel Spreadsheet

[https://support.office.com/article/mail-merge-u...](https://support.office.com/article/mail-merge-using-an-excel-spreadsheet-858c7d7f-5cc0-4ba1-9a7b-0a948fa3d7d3)

Labels

[https://support.office.com/article/print-mailin...](https://support.office.com/article/print-mailing-labels-276a2cd1-74d2-43d0-ab5a-b90460358ad5)

Fields and Rules

Mail Merge Fields

[https://support.office.com/article/insert-mail-...](https://support.office.com/article/insert-mail-merge-fields-9a1ab5e3-2d7a-420d-8d7e-7cc26f26acff)

Set the Rules for a Mail Merge

[https://support.office.com/article/set-the-rule...](https://support.office.com/article/set-the-rules-for-a-mail-merge-d546ee7e-ab7a-4d6d-b488-41f9e4bd1409)

Here is my page on MailMerge which contains those links and others.

MailMerge Using Microsoft Word

http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/mailmerge.htm

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Answer 2

A typical label would look like:

2020

Mortgage - Main Home

Acct # *******

Answer 3

The data was simple typed onto the labels in random order. For example, a label for Medical Expenses might be right next to a label for Utilities. This is a Word document. Excel was not used. 

A typical label would look like:

2020

Mortgage - Main Home

Acct # *******

Answer 4

I agree that the simplest way to do this is to have the data in Excel and use a Mail Merge.

Mail merge using an Excel spreadsheet - Word

Here is a way to get the data in your labels into Excel:

Convert Word labels to a mail merge data source by Graham Mayor, MVP

Answer 5

Hi lagnphx

How is this data set up, do you have your data in an Excel spreadsheet and then import that into Word to use Mail Merge to create the labels?

If so, are you able to sort that data by the Description column?

If that data is just set up in Word, can you please explain the setup you are using . . .