Mail merge limit word 2000

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C - 25 Jan 2007 10:46 GMT

Hi all

I noticed somewhere on the word Microsoft site that word 2000 had a limit of
63 fields that it could use in a mail merge, but I am currently working on a
file that has 65 fields on it and it needs to grow some more.

could some please verify the limit if there is one and has this changed in
later versions of offices. I cant seem to find any updates on the web.

thanks very much
Craig

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C - 25 Jan 2007 10:50 GMT

Sorry, added info

I am on xp pro and I am using a CSV/txt file for my data source

> Hi all
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> thanks very much
> Craig

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Peter Jamieson - 25 Jan 2007 11:23 GMT

The limit of 63 fields only really applies if your data source is a Word
table, because they cannot have more than 63 columns.

Generally speaking if your data source is a text file, you can have far more
columns (I do not think that there is a published limit, but there are
people with over 1000. That said, the larger and more complex the file gets,
the less likely Word is to recognise the file format easily, and at that
point, people sometimes have to choose another format). So if you're just
adding a few, you should be OK for a long time yet.

Things have changed a bit in Word 2002/2003 but mainly it's to do with the
default method that Word uses to open text and other files. If you have
problems in those versions of Word, the first thing to try is to check Word
Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversion at Open", then re-connect to your
data source. You should see an additional box that lets you select the
connection method. But if you need to be sure that /your/ application will
work on Word 2002/2003, there's really only one way and that's to try it
with that version.

Peter Jamieson

> Hi all
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> thanks very much
> Craig

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C - 25 Jan 2007 11:57 GMT

Thanks very much for that,

that's great news

I should only need 100 - 150 fields max, so I should be ok with that

as for 2002 and 3 we have various versions in the offices so I will give it
a test

we are planning to upgrade to everyone 07 later in the year are there many
other changes I should look out for

I don't want to have to remake this

thanks again
Craig

> The limit of 63 fields only really applies if your data source is a Word
> table, because they cannot have more than 63 columns.
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>> thanks very much
>> Craig

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Peter Jamieson - 25 Jan 2007 12:17 GMT

> I should only need 100 - 150 fields max, so I should be ok with that

"Experiment first, relax later" is my motto :-)

> we are planning to upgrade to everyone 07 later in the year are there
> many other changes I should look out for

As far as MailMerge is concerned,
a. there were significant changes betwen 2000 and 2002/2003: The standard
user interface is different. Word tries to connect to most types of data
source using OLEDB by default. In 2000 it can't use OLEDB, and uses DDE by
default for Access and Excel, and converters or ODBC for other things. There
are more security-related pop-ups. Some fields behave differently if they
are nested inside IF fields. And so on. You'll find various pages of very
useful stuff in the Word section of Graham Mayor's site at www.gmayor.com
to do with that.
b. the most noticeable change in 2007 is in the user interface of course. I
would say it is better for Mailmerge than 2002/2003 but still very
unfamiliar for 2000 users. A less noticeable changes is that 2002/2003 used
OLEDB+the Access/Jet engine to connect to Access, Excel, and some other
types of data source. Jet has been modified and renamed as "Ace", and that's
what Word 2007 now uses - it has to, in order to be able to connect to Excel
XML format .xlsx files, for example.
c. other than that, I haven't been using 2007 long enough to find other
things that might "break".

Peter Jamieson

> Thanks very much for that,
>
[quoted text clipped - 46 lines]
>>> thanks very much
>>> Craig

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C - 25 Jan 2007 13:29 GMT

thanks for that

I will bear that motto in mind

;-)
Craig

>> I should only need 100 - 150 fields max, so I should be ok with that
>
[quoted text clipped - 74 lines]
>>>> thanks very much
>>>> Craig

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