Mail Merge Fields

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Steve Koenig - 17 Mar 2006 22:23 GMT

Merging between Excel and Word and all of the merge fields are picked up
correctly in the resulting Word document except for the Street Number field
when this field has a PO Box, eg PO Box 321. The result displayed is 0.
I just finished reviewing "Formatting Word fields with switches" on fellow
MVP Graham Mayor's website at

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

This web site was helpful as I learned to toggle between field display and
the result with ALT + F9. The field display shows the field name Street
Number cottectly. I am unclear that if there were any switches associated
with this Field Code would they in fact be displayed when displaying the
Field Name?

Not to bore anyone with everything I tried, but I have tried everything I
could think to do and still can't get the result to display a PO Box followed
by the number.
I tried formatting the column in Excel to text, no luck, then formatting the
column in Excel to general, still no luck. I even tried to just enter PO Box
as the "street number" and the actual number as the "Street Name", but again
the result for the Field "Street Number" results as 0.
I tried to delete all PO Box entries in Excel and format the column then
re-enter the data, still no luck.
Its just this one Field that isn't working. All of the other fields yield
the intentioned information.
I can't imagine what is going on here.
Can anyone help me with this?
Steve Koenig

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Graham Mayor - 18 Mar 2006 07:43 GMT

Format the Excel column as text. If that doesn't work, see the alternative
method of connection to Excel described at
http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_labels_with_word_xp.htm under Excel data.

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<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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> Merging between Excel and Word and all of the merge fields are picked
> up correctly in the resulting Word document except for the Street
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> Can anyone help me with this?
> Steve Koenig

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Steve Koenig - 18 Mar 2006 21:27 GMT

Graham,

thank you for the reply, but it left me with nothing new to try.

Your first suggestion was:
Format the Excel column as text,
but my original inquiry stated:
I tried formatting the column in Excel to text

Your second suggestion was to review your web site on an alternative method
of connecting to Excel.
When I click on that link, I get a message,
The page cannot be found

I just can't imagine why this one field won't merge properly.
Thank you,
Steve Koenig

> Format the Excel column as text. If that doesn't work, see the alternative
> method of connection to Excel described at
[quoted text clipped - 30 lines]
> > Can anyone help me with this?
> > Steve Koenig

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Peter Jamieson - 18 Mar 2006 22:44 GMT

I'd have another go at accessing Graham's site.

The problem in this case is almost certainly that the column contains only
numeric data (or possibly blank) in the first few rows of your sheet (maybe
8 or 25 rows). When Word (2002/2003) get the data using the Jet OLEDB
provider (which is what it does by default) its decision about the data type
of each column partly depends on what it finds in the column,

My guess is that if you temporarily put the "offending" row at the top of
your data you may get a different result.

One way around this should be to revert to the old DDE connection method by
a. checking Word Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversions at open"
b. disconnecting from the data source, then reconnecting to Excel and
selecting the DDE option when it's offered. If the workbook is multi-sheet,
make sure you open it, select the sheet you want, then (probably) save and
close the workbook before trying to access it.

Peter Jamieson

> Merging between Excel and Word and all of the merge fields are picked up
> correctly in the resulting Word document except for the Street Number
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
> Can anyone help me with this?
> Steve Koenig

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Steve Koenig - 19 Mar 2006 02:16 GMT

Thank you Peter,

I may not know how, why or anything else, but I took your advice and added
PO Box temp to nthe first record otherwise a PO Box didn't show up till about
the 12th record. So somehow Word thought it was suppose to be a number field
even though I formatted the Excel column to text.
And I thought I had tried everything.
Good thing I never had to deal with the old connection method or I would
have quickly been in over my head.
Thanks again,
Steve Koenig

> I'd have another go at accessing Graham's site.
>
[quoted text clipped - 49 lines]
> > Can anyone help me with this?
> > Steve Koenig

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