Formatting problem in dollar fields

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Tom - 19 May 2006 22:59 GMT

I am trying to do a merge where I import several fields, some of which are
dollar amounts. I've done this successfully several times in the last few
years, but now all I get are plain numbers instead of dollar amounts. I don't
want to put $ in every field, because if the field is blank I want it to be
blank. I am copying data out of Access into Excel, then using the Excel
spreadsheet for my data file. In Excel the formatting of the dollar fields
shows a custom field of $#,##0.00;($#,##0.00). This is exactly the same as
when I did this two years ago. The only difference between then and now is my
version of Office. Then was 2002, now I have 2003. Is my new version of
Office trying to "help" me, but actually making it more difficult on me?

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Peter Jamieson - 20 May 2006 00:51 GMT

Do you have any numeric formatting switches (like \#"$,0.00" in your Word
mail merge main document? (Use Alt-F9 to look at the field codes.

If not, it sounds as if the connection method used may have changed from DDE
(which would display what you entered in Excel, more or less) to OLEDB,
which is the default for both Word 2002/2003 and needs suitable field
switches in Word to format the amounts correctly. If so, you can switch back
to DDE by checking Word Tools|Options|general|Confirm conversion at open and
re-connecting to the data source, or put appropriate formatting switches
into your fields.

Peter Jamieson

>I am trying to do a merge where I import several fields, some of which are
> dollar amounts. I've done this successfully several times in the last few
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> version of Office. Then was 2002, now I have 2003. Is my new version of
> Office trying to "help" me, but actually making it more difficult on me?

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macropod - 20 May 2006 00:57 GMT

Hi Tom,

You can fix this by adding a picture switch to the mergefield. For example:
. select the errant field
. press Shift-F9 to expose the code (which will look something like
{MERGEFIELD ExcelVal}
. change the field code to {MERGEFIELD ExcelVal \# $,0.00;($,0.00)}
. run your mailmerge.

Cheers

> I am trying to do a merge where I import several fields, some of which are
> dollar amounts. I've done this successfully several times in the last few
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> version of Office. Then was 2002, now I have 2003. Is my new version of
> Office trying to "help" me, but actually making it more difficult on me?

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