[OS X TeX] Mail merge from Excel to LaTeX letter class?

[Maarten Sneep]

On 31 okt 2008, at 08:04, Andrei Sobolevskii wrote:

> Dear Mike,
>
> On 31 Oct 2008, at 05:52, Michael Hanson wrote:
>
>> I have an existing Excel worksheet with contact information that  
>> I'd like to "mail merge" into a set of LaTeX-generated letters.   
>> Ideally, I'd like to be able to just push a button in TeXShop and  
>> have this work -- maybe a macro or engine?  I'm willing to learn  
>> some basic coding to facilitate a relatively automated solution
>
> You might first export your Excel file into CSV format (CSV means  
> "comma separated values"; since fields in your file probably contain  
> commas, choose some other delimiter, e.g. tab) and then process it  
> with some tool.  E.g. you could write a shell script or a simple C  
> program that scans the CSV file and writes out the LaTeX documents.

I've done something like this using PHP. PHP can easily read CSV  
files, and inserting the fields into a template is what PHP was  
designed to do. I'll send you the files I used off-list.

Maarten