mail merge using Word and Excel doesn't work correctly

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enolalum - 28 Oct 2005 03:30 GMT

In Office XP Professional, using Excel 2002 spreadsheet as data source for
Word 2002 letter merge worked many times before and now doesn't. The zip code
field changes from 5-9 digits to zero in about 1/3 of the letters. Remaining
2/3 of letters merge correctly. The zip codes that change are not just those
with a zero at the beginning of the 5-9 digits. Some of the 9 digits zip
codes change to zero now but didn't previously.

If I use a previously saved version of the spreadsheet, the merge prints out
correctly. However, if I make changes to the spreadsheet, some of the zip
code fields print as zero again. I have been using a version of the letter
and spreadsheet for over a year without any problems, until now.

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 28 Oct 2005 04:56 GMT

See "Formatting Word fields with switches" on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's
website at

http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm

If that doesn't work, I think you will have to look at the Excel
spreadsheets to try and detect differences between the formatting of the
cells on the one that works and the one that doesn't.

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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

> In Office XP Professional, using Excel 2002 spreadsheet as data source for
> Word 2002 letter merge worked many times before and now doesn't. The zip
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> code fields print as zero again. I have been using a version of the letter
> and spreadsheet for over a year without any problems, until now.

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enolalum - 29 Oct 2005 20:27 GMT

Thanks for the help, Doug.

Your first tip below didn't work, but second one did as I found the problem.
One specific cell in Excel that was updated is changing other data in the
merge to zeros, but not sure why. I went back to a spreadsheet that worked
and deleted changes I made. Merge worked after that.

Regards and thanks again.

> See "Formatting Word fields with switches" on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's
> website at
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> > code fields print as zero again. I have been using a version of the letter
> > and spreadsheet for over a year without any problems, until now.

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