Cross Reference, Table Of Contents. Mail Merge
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Wikipedia
The term cross-reference (abbreviation: xref) can refer to either:
- An instance within a document which refers to related information elsewhere in the same document. In both printed and online dictionaries cross-references are important because they form a network structure of relations existing between different parts of data, dictionary-internal as well as dictionary external.
- In an index, a cross-reference is often denoted by See also. For example, under the term Albert Einstein in the index of a book about Nobel Laureates, there may be the cross-reference See also: Einstein, Albert.
- In hypertext, cross-referencing is maintained to a document with either in-context (XRIC) or out-of-context (XROC) cross-referencing. These are similar to KWIC and KWOC.
- In programming, “cross-referencing” means the listing of every file name and line number where a given named identifier occurs within the program’s source tree.
- In a relational database management system, a table can have an xref as prefix or suffix to indicate it is a cross-reference table that joins two or more tables together via primary key.
In a document, especially those authored in a content management system, a cross-reference has two major aspects:
- A visible form that appears when the document is presented to the reader
- A technical mechanism that resides within the system
The visible form contains text, graphics, and other indications that:
- Enable the reader to follow the cross-reference to the referenced content
- May enable the reader to understand what is being referred to, or what to expect upon following the reference
- May present to the reader some information from the referenced content
The technical mechanism that resides within the system:
- Identifies what location is being referred to
- Permits the system to present appropriate referencing text when the location containing the reference is presented to a reader
- Permits the system to offer a control (such as a link) that a reader can use when the content is presented in electronic form to access the referenced content.
If the cross-reference mechanism is well designed, the reader will be able to follow each cross-reference to the referenced content whether the content is presented in print or electronically.
An author working in a content management system is responsible for identifying subjects of interest that cross documents, and creating appropriate systems of cross-references to support readers who seek to understand those subjects. For an individual cross-reference, an author should ensure that location and content of the target of the cross-reference are clearly identified, and the reader can easily determine how to follow the cross-reference in each medium in which publication is supported.
Content strategy practitioners (known as content strategists) specialize in planning content to meet business needs, taking into account the processes for creating and maintaining the content, and the systems that support the content.
Mail merge consists of combining mail and letters and pre-addressed envelopes or mailing labels for mass mailings from a form letter.
This feature is usually employed in a word processing document which contains fixed text (which is the same in each output document) and variables (which act as placeholders that are replaced by text from the data source word to word).
Some word processors can insert content from a database, spreadsheet, or table into text documents.
It is a powerful tool for writing a personalized letter or e-mail to many people at the same time. It imports data from another source such as a spreadsheet and then uses that to replace placeholders throughout the message with the relevant information for each individual that is being messaged.
Mail merge dates back to early word processors on personal computers, circa 1980. WordStar was perhaps the earliest to provide this, originally via an ancillary program called Mail merge. WordPerfect also offered this capacity for CP/M and MS-DOS systems; Microsoft Word added it later on, as did Multimate.
Money can be saved by pre-sorting on zip code and grouping by postal-discount requirements (same ZIP code, same SCF).
A paperless approach is to use mail merge to format email.
Going beyond words, in 2018 The New York Times detailed a further instance of “mass customization” – personalized videos.
The data source is typically a spreadsheet or a database which has a field or column for each variable in the template. When the mail merge process is run, the word processing system creates an output document for each row in the database, using the fixed text exactly as it appears.
The mail merging process generally requires the following steps:
- Creating a main document and the template.
- Creating a data source.
- Defining the merge fields in the main document.
- Merging the data with the main document.
- Saving/exporting.
A common usage is for creating “personalized” letters, where a template is created, with a field for “Given Name”, for example. The templated letter says “Dear <Given Name>”, and when executed, the mail merge creates a letter for each record in the database, so it appears the letter is more personal. It is often used for variable data printing. It can also be used to create address labels from a customer relationship management database, or for mass emails with pertinent information in them, perhaps a username and password.
A table is an arrangement of columns and rows that organizes and positions data or images. Tables can be created on Wikipedia pages using special wikitext syntax, and many different styles and tricks can be used to customise them.
Tables can be used as formatting instrument, but consider using a multi column list instead.
The sample text (“Header text” or “Example”) is intended to be replaced with actual data. You can fill in the table while in source mode. Or use the visual editor (VE). With the visual editor (VE) you directly fill in the cells without having to go through wikitext. See the VE section farther down. VE makes it easy to add or delete rows or columns. In VE this is what shows up when clicking the table icon (in the “Insert” menu):
Optional parameters can modify the display and styling of cells, rows, or the entire table. The simplest way to add styling is to set the wikitable CSS class, which in Wikipedia’s external style sheet is defined to apply a gray color scheme and cell borders to tables using it: