Dummy letters on mail merge

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Cynthia - 07 Nov 2007 21:35 GMT

I am using Word 2003 SP2 and Excel 2003 SP2. I have 347 names and addresses
on a spreadsheet as my database for my mail merge. When I merge information
into the form letter, I end up with over 3,000 letters. The 347 I need are
correct, but the others are blank or "dummy" letters. Right now, I am
manually deleting these letters after merging and before printing.

Is there a way to delete or avoid creating these dummy letters prior to
creating the merged letters?

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Cynthia

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 08 Nov 2007 03:18 GMT

Select all of the rows in the Excel spreadsheet after the last record and
press Delete. There may be spaces in some of the cells in those rows that
are resulting in them being treated as records.

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Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>I am using Word 2003 SP2 and Excel 2003 SP2. I have 347 names and
>addresses
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Is there a way to delete or avoid creating these dummy letters prior to
> creating the merged letters?

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Cynthia - 08 Nov 2007 14:23 GMT

Thanks, but that didn't do it. I also tried setting the required records as
the print area on the spreadsheet, but that was also unsuccessful.

I'm wondering if there is a way to deselect the blank records as a group
when I preview the Recipients listing -- or deselect all records and select
the needed records as a group?

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Cynthia

> Select all of the rows in the Excel spreadsheet after the last record and
> press Delete. There may be spaces in some of the cells in those rows that
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> > Is there a way to delete or avoid creating these dummy letters prior to
> > creating the merged letters?

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 08 Nov 2007 22:51 GMT

Try copying the records and pasting them into a new Work Sheet in Excel.

Another thing that you can do is name the range of cells that contain the
data and then when you attach the data source, select that named range. To
be given that option, you may need to select Options from the Tools menu in
Word and then go to the General tab and check the box against "Confirm
conversions at open".

Do the dummy letters appear after the 347 that you need or are they
scattered throughout them.

If they appear after, in Word, you can tell it to merge records 1 thru 347.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

> Thanks, but that didn't do it. I also tried setting the required records
> as
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>> > Is there a way to delete or avoid creating these dummy letters prior to
>> > creating the merged letters?

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Cynthia - 09 Nov 2007 19:18 GMT

Thank you - this is very helpful!

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Cynthia

> Try copying the records and pasting them into a new Work Sheet in Excel.
>
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> >> > Is there a way to delete or avoid creating these dummy letters prior to
> >> > creating the merged letters?

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