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MS Office Forum / Word / Mailmerge and Fax / May 2006Data Source not updating
Hi, I'm trying to do a mail merge using excel as the data source. There are approx 30 columns and 30 rows. The fields that are being mapped into word contain text which is in the cell as a result of an IF statement e.g =if(cell A = "MATHS1", "you're great at maths",false). The IF statement is working perfect in excel i.e the conditions are being applied and the correct text appears in the cells (no cell contains a false). When I do the mail merge the first two fields appear correctly but for the rest of the fields I get FALSE in all cells. I've refreshed the data, I've made sure that its updating by changing small things but its ignoring the updates and shows FALSE in all fields. Can anyone help, I'm at my wits end ! I haven't been able to replicate this so far, but... Which version of Word/Excel? How are you connecting? Does it make any difference if you change the way you connect (in Word 2002/2003, check Word Tools|Options|general|Confirm conversions at open then reconnect) Does it make any difference if you acutally go through the reconnection process? Are you always using ,false) or are you sometimes using ,"false")? Do all the Excel cells have the same formatting? Peter Jamieson > Hi, I'm trying to do a mail merge using excel as the data source. There > are [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > changing small things but its ignoring the updates and shows FALSE in all > fields. Can anyone help, I'm at my wits end ! Hi, Ok word 2002, excel 2002. The cell that is working has the following formulae. =IF(D2="Eng B1",$E$32,IF(D2="Eng B2",$E$33,IF(D2="Eng B3",$E$34,IF(D2="Eng G1",$E$35,IF(D2="Eng G2",$E$36,IF(D2="Eng G3",$E$37,FALSE)))))) where E32,33,34,35,36&37 say things like - Thats great, good work, well done longer strings of text. The cell that isn't working has this formulae =IF(H2="Sci B1",$I$32,IF(H2="Sci B2",$I$33,IF(H2="Sci B3",$I$34,IF(H2="Sci G1",$I$35,IF(H2="Sci G2",$I$36,IF(H2="Sci G3",$I$37,FALSE)))))) The interesting thing is that although both have the same cell format, the cells that don't work in the mail merge have ######## in the sample box in Format/Cell, the cells that work show the actual text in the sample box. This seems kinda significant. But I dunno why - is there a limit on the size of the string allowed ? The ones not working have more than 100 words. Is there a max number of words allowed in one field ? When I did the tools/options/confirm ....... I received the following in the first incorrect field "Error! MergeField was not found in header record of data source." the rest of the fields show false again All formulaes have ,FALSE) not ,"FALSE") > I haven't been able to replicate this so far, but... > Which version of Word/Excel? [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > changing small things but its ignoring the updates and shows FALSE in all > > fields. Can anyone help, I'm at my wits end ! OK, so absolutely no difference in the structure of the formulas. I'm no Excel expert, but AFAIK it does behave differently when a text exceeds a certain length: it has a "text type" up to around 255 chars, and a "memo" type for longer stuff. What's more, the ODBC driver/OLEDB provider for Excel can decide that a whole column is "text" if there is a mix of text and memo types in the first few rows. However, a. that doesn't explain why you're getting "False" rather than even a partial text - again, my example is probably too simple at the moment. b. it doesn't solve your problem except it suggests "don't do it that way" or "use more than one cell if the text exceeds 255 chars or whatever. If you don't have more than 63 columns, the simplest approach may be to copy/paste the whole table into Word and use that as a data source - I haven't tried, though, and you may still get truncation. Incidentally, the truncation I get in Word is not straightforward. The text in Excel doesn't appear to truncate at 255 characters. It appears to truncate at the 255th non-space character. Go figure! Best I can do for now. Peter Jamieson > Hi, > Ok word 2002, excel 2002. The cell that is working has the following [quoted text clipped - 60 lines] >> > all >> > fields. Can anyone help, I'm at my wits end ! Actually I think that worked......I've cracked it. Well actually Peter you did. The Confirm conversions at open seems to have worked. Thanks so much. you're a star > I haven't been able to replicate this so far, but... > Which version of Word/Excel? [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > changing small things but its ignoring the updates and shows FALSE in all > > fields. Can anyone help, I'm at my wits end ! Oh good! - but test carefully! Peter Jamieson > Actually I think that worked......I've cracked it. Well actually Peter you > did. The Confirm conversions at open seems to have worked. Thanks so much. [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >> > all >> > fields. Can anyone help, I'm at my wits end ! |
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