Merging addresses

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Anthony Deane - 15 Dec 2003 12:59 GMT

Hello,

I have been sent an excel file with which to do a mail merge. This is okay,
but unfortunately the format is not the same as I am used to. I would put
each line of the address into a different cell and then merge from that but
this document has the addresses separated by a ||. When I go into the
formula bar, this symbol is now a square.

I have had to edit some of the addresses, and add new ones. But I can't
seem to enter the square, (this separates the address and has the same
effect as 'enter') When I type || on it's own it doesn't work either.

I would appreciate any help that you could give. After all, it is almost
Christmas!

Anthony Deane

(P.S. Sorry about the rambling nature of this post, I didn't know how to put
it more succinctly)

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Cindy M -WordMVP- - 16 Dec 2003 14:25 GMT

Hi Anthony,

So, if I understand you correctly, the entire address is in a single Excel
cell, and each new line is separated by this "funny character"? Hmmm. I donßt
recognize the situation, so I can only start with some general suggestions on
what you could do to get things more "standardized":

1. If you copy/paste these ranges into Word, do you get a recognizable
character/symbol in the resulting Word table? If you do
- you could use Find/Replace to turn it into something else
- you could, possibly, use Table/Convert Table to Text to turn these into
delimited text, then Convert Text to Table to get multiple columns, such as
you're accustomed to

2. Possibly you could select the charater in Excel cell-edit mode, Ctrl+C to
copy it, then Ctrl+V in Excel's Find/Replace so that you can replace it
globally with something else

3. Another possibility might be to use Data/Text to columns to pull this apart
in Excel

4. You could also try exporting to delimited text file format, then import
again (or open in Word and edit it there).

> I have been sent an excel file with which to do a mail merge. This is okay,
> but unfortunately the format is not the same as I am used to. I would put
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> I would appreciate any help that you could give. After all, it is almost
> Christmas!

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

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