Mail Merge: Lost formatting from Excel to Word

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Michelle - 04 Dec 2003 23:56 GMT

Hello -

We recently just upgraded all of our computers in our office from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Prior to upgrading, I created a mail merge document. The data source was Excel and then merged into Word.

When creating the document in excel, I entered the numbers simply as "5300101" and then formatted it to included dashes (ex: 53-001-01). Prior to our upgrade to XP, these format settings would carry over to the word document. Now that we have upgraded, none of the formatted colums carry over. It will simply show as "5300101" when I merge it. I have honestly tried everything I can think of.

I've tried saving them as text only... going back in and formatting it again... and updating my data source and merging it all over again etc. I've tried different format settings for phone numbers and none of them carry over.

Please help!!?? =)

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Cindy M -WordMVP- - 05 Dec 2003 17:06 GMT

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWljaGVsbGU=?=,

Knowing the version of Windows is always nice, but what's essential is the version of WORD?

You might find useful information on my website.

> We recently just upgraded all of our computers in our office from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Prior to upgrading, I created a mail merge document. The data source was Excel and then merged into Word.
>
> When creating the document in excel, I entered the numbers simply as "5300101" and then formatted it to included dashes (ex: 53-001-01). Prior to our upgrade to XP, these format settings would carry over to the word document. Now that we have upgraded, none of the formatted colums carry over. It will simply show as "5300101" when I merge it. I have honestly tried everything I can think of.
>
> I've tried saving them as text only... going back in and formatting it again... and updating my data source and merging it all over again etc. I've tried different format settings for phone numbers and none of them carry over.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

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Michelle - 06 Dec 2003 00:26 GMT

Thank you so much for replying!!

We use Word 2002. I've browsed your website and I'm sorry to be such a pain... but I'm still not sure which instructions to follow or how to do it. Some of it is just a whole different language to me.

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Cindy M -WordMVP- - 06 Dec 2003 11:09 GMT

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWljaGVsbGU=?=,

> We use Word 2002. I've browsed your website and I'm sorry to be such a pain... but I'm still not sure which instructions to follow or how to do it.

Some of it is just a whole different language to me.

That's OK :-)

Probably the easiest thing to do is to go back to linking to the Excel data
as you used to. Go to Tools/Options/General and activate the "Confirm
conversions on open" option. Now select the Excel sheet again.

This time, you should get a dialog box you didn't see before that will let
you choose how to connect. Word 2002 is using OLE DB by default, this is
new. Word 2000 and earlier used DDE, which is very old :-) But it has the
advantage for mail merge that it carries on a conversation with Excel. This
means that the number formats visible in the Excel interface come across the
link.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

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