I am trying to do something that I thought should be easy. I have a database
with records: name and page number. I am creating a phone book like
directory in alphabetical order. I want to format my records where they fit
on one page in alphabetical order in 4 columns before they overflow to the
next page. Is there a way to programatically do this in Access, Excel or
Word without having to go in by hand and cut/paste to arrange them? My
records are now in Access, but I could use any of those programs. Hope this
makes sense!

you can open it in Word, then do Format/Columns/ set to 4 and viola...

"Melissa" wrote:

I am trying to do something that I thought should be easy. I have a database
with records: name and page number. I am creating a phone book like
directory in alphabetical order. I want to format my records where they fit
on one page in alphabetical order in 4 columns before they overflow to the
next page. Is there a way to programatically do this in Access, Excel or
Word without having to go in by hand and cut/paste to arrange them? My
records are now in Access, but I could use any of those programs. Hope this
makes sense!

like mailing labels?

http://databases.about.com/od/tutori...linglabels.htm

shouldn't be too hard in access

Yes like that. I think from what I have seen what I want is a horizontal
layout. I am going to try both of your suggestions. Thank you!

"~slacker~" wrote:

like mailing labels?

http://databases.about.com/od/tutori...linglabels.htm

shouldn't be too hard in access

The labeling thing is similar to what I want. My question after looking at
the form in design view is what did they do that made the data move to the
next column at the bottom of the page instead of going to the next page? I
didn't see what went on behind the scenes to do that. I have 2 columns of
data; name in one and page # in another. I want all of the a's to display
eg:

name page name page name page name page
going down each column in alphabetical order.

Thanks for your help!

"Melissa" wrote:

Yes like that. I think from what I have seen what I want is a horizontal
layout. I am going to try both of your suggestions. Thank you!

"~slacker~" wrote:

like mailing labels?

http://databases.about.com/od/tutori...linglabels.htm

shouldn't be too hard in access

I think this will work for me. I do have a ton of records and it seems to
get hung up, but I will just have to be patient. Thanks!

"dlw" wrote:

you can open it in Word, then do Format/Columns/ set to 4 and viola...

"Melissa" wrote:

I am trying to do something that I thought should be easy. I have a database
with records: name and page number. I am creating a phone book like
directory in alphabetical order. I want to format my records where they fit
on one page in alphabetical order in 4 columns before they overflow to the
next page. Is there a way to programatically do this in Access, Excel or
Word without having to go in by hand and cut/paste to arrange them? My
records are now in Access, but I could use any of those programs. Hope this
makes sense!

The columns are actually set from the page setup menu

I'm glad your replied. I was trying to do it in Word but it wasn't
formatting as nicely as I would like. So I am looking at the Page Setup
under Columns and I am doing 4 columns down and then across but mine aren't
going to the next column so I am still missing a setting somewhere...

"~slacker~" wrote:

The columns are actually set from the page setup menu

Okay, I figured out why my columns weren't repeating and that is working now,
but if I want my heading to repeat for all of the columns is there a way to
do that?

"Melissa" wrote:

I'm glad your replied. I was trying to do it in Word but it wasn't
formatting as nicely as I would like. So I am looking at the Page Setup
under Columns and I am doing 4 columns down and then across but mine aren't
going to the next column so I am still missing a setting somewhere...

"~slacker~" wrote:

The columns are actually set from the page setup menu