MergeField Limits in tables?

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Bob Z. - 15 Apr 2004 20:05 GMT

I have a template with a table set up with two columns and multiple rows,
and a merge field in each resulting cell.

This all works OK when the merge field content is fairly short, (e.g.: "this
is short") but not so good when fields get longer, (e.g.: "This is a lengthy
description of something else.")

The merge fails only when a couple of the merge fields have longer content
AND a table is involved. With only one longer field the merge completes just
fine and when no tables are involved it seems to be OK.

With several long merge fields in a table I get an error message that says:
"Data fields must be separated from each other by a character called a field
delimiter. Similarly, data records must be separated by a record
delimiter..."

The data source is a text file that gets created on the fly using comma
delimited text (e.g.: "field1","field2","field3") pulled from a third-party
application.

Any ideas on the cause and/or the solution to this? Thanks!

- Bob

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Peter Jamieson - 16 Apr 2004 08:01 GMT

This obviously should not happen, but I don't know what you can do about it.
I suppose the next thng I would attempt would be to open the your .csv file
in Word, and either save it as a Word .doc and try uisng that as the data
source, or use Table|"Convert text to table" to convert it to a table (won't
work if you have more than 63 columns), save that as a .doc and use that.

Other than that,
a. do you have any unusual characters in the .csv, such as double-quote
marks in the data?
b. which version of Word?

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Peter Jamieson - Word MVP
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org/

> I have a template with a table set up with two columns and multiple rows,
> and a merge field in each resulting cell.
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> - Bob

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Bob Z. - 19 Apr 2004 17:30 GMT

Thanks! I'll try converting the text to a table if we have less than 64
columns, but we may be over that mark.
a. Characters: No double-quotes are allowed in merge field text. The merge
fails even when only alpha or only numeric content is used.
b. Version: Word 2002 (10.4524.4219) SP-2

- Bob

> This obviously should not happen, but I don't know what you can do about it.
> I suppose the next thng I would attempt would be to open the your .csv file
[quoted text clipped - 36 lines]
> >
> > - Bob

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Peter Jamieson - 19 Apr 2004 21:46 GMT

Not much to add, but...

...it may be worth trying opening the text and saving it in .doc format even
without converting it to a table, especially since you have no "rogue"
double-quotes to confuse things. However,
a. in Word 2002, connecting to the data source can be very slow with
non-OLEDB data sources such as .doc (actually, it can be pretty slow with
OLEDB sources as well)
b. sort/selection facilities can be more limited when using Word format
data sources in Word 2002

The other thing you can try in Word 2002 is to check Word
Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversion at open", and when you connect to
the data source, specify that the file is a text file or ODBC data source
rather than an OLEDB data source. However, even if you get better results
when you do that, you may need to verify that the solution will work when
you distribute it to user systems. In the case of ODBC, you may need to edit
the SYSTEM.INI in the folder containing the data source file to ensure that
the correct delimiters are used etc., and the same may be necessary on user
systems.

Signature

Peter Jamieson - Word MVP
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org/

> Thanks! I'll try converting the text to a table if we have less than 64
> columns, but we may be over that mark.
[quoted text clipped - 49 lines]
> > >
> > > - Bob

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