If you could give a more detailed rundown of all the steps you did it would be really helpful to many of us. I use Word and Excel but not that often (Mac user - I try to stay away from Microsoft software
), so seriously, hold my hand and walk me through it. I just downloaded my precinct data file (Excel .csv file). How do we sort/filter the data?
WE NEED A WHITE PAPER ON THIS PROCESS.
Thanks for the help!
Ok...I'll give a quick rundown which should help most with a little experience with excel. I won't go into how to parse out duplicate houses with excel, because it's almost easier to do manually. (and it will take forever to explain in detail)
1. Download your precinct's spreadsheet from voters.ronpaul2008.com (.csv format), and open it in excel.
2. Click on the label "1" for the very first row containing the column headers to highlight the entire first row.
3. Then choose Data-->Filter-->Autofilter, dropdown menus will appear on every column heading
4. Filter as you like, I typically just select the "R" to filter republicans only. Then you can copy just these guys to a new sheet to make it easier later, leaving out all the info past column L (favorite issues, etc). If you want to work with that too to target slim jims to people, you can.
5. Now the fun begins. You should have all your republicans in a new sheet with columns A - L, as below:
The goal here is to format this so it ultimately looks nice on the envelope/letter. That includes making the street name and city name proper case, and adding "Unit" or "Apt" ahead of the apartment column (as you can see in the above pic). This is easier than is sounds.
The way I did this may not be the best way, but it's fast. As you can see I added five columns, "Unit", "FullAddress", "FullAddress2", "First2", and "Last2". You basically just need to type formulas into cells M2, N2, O2, P2, and Q2 and then fill downwards throughout the whole documen:.
Cell M2: =IF(ISBLANK(H2),"",CONCATENATE("Unit ",H2))
This basically looks at cell H2 (the apartment/unit cell), and if it's empty, does nothing. If there is something there, it adds that value to the end of "Unit ". So Column M will contain a value only if you're dealing with an apt.
Cell N2: =CONCATENATE(C2," ",PROPER(E2)," ",PROPER(G2)," ",M2)
This basically slaps together the address into one cell, takes the number (Col C), the street (Col E) with proper formatting, the suffix (Col G) with proper formatting, and then adds the Unit (Col M)
Cell O2: =CONCATENATE(PROPER(I2),", CA 92054")
Properly formats the city (Col I), and slaps on the state and zip code.
Cell P2: =PROPER(A2)
Properly formats the first name.
Cell Q2: =PROPER(B2)
Properly formats the first name.
Once you have that working for the first row, you can highlight all five M2/N2/O2/P2/Q2 and copy/paste them over the rest of the column (excel whizzes, just double click on the lower right corner of the five cells after they are highlighted to autofill down).
That's basically it for excel. To make it easy, you can copy just columns N-Q into a separate document and save it for the mail merge.
WORD PART
1. Open word.
2. Click this link and read it:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA010349201033.aspx 
Basically you'll open the mail merge wizard and point it at the excel file, make sure word knows where the addresses, first, and last names are by selecting the column headings, and then inserting the placeholders for the data in your letter. (from my example word .doc, this is the <<Address Block>> near the beginning).
3. Print shedload of letters.
Whew....hope that helps!! I'll do my best with questions.
