I am trying to do a basic mail merge of addresses from an excel file to word using Avery L7162 labels.



My excel sheet contains basic info which is grouped into these columns:
Name, address1, address2, city, state, country.
See attached image.

Once I have started the mail merge and get to selecting INSERT MERGE FIELD the fields are not separated as per the columns, instead they are grouped together into one field which is: NameAddress_1Address_2CityStatePost
-See the other attached image.

My question is, how do I get Word to recognise that the excel columns should be separate Merge fields?

Thank you.

Ordinarily, one would expect to have to put whatever spacing, line breaks, etc. one requires between the mergefields. That said, I'd have expected consecutively-inserted mergefields to look like:
«Name»«Address_1»«Address_2»«City»«State»«Post»
(note the '»«' pairs between the mergefields), not:
«NameAddress_1Address_2CityState»«Post»

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks, so how do I edit the spacing and line breaks between the mergefields?

Ordinarily, one would do the formatting at the same time as inserting the mergefields, in an iterative process.

If you toggle Word's field code display 'on' (e.g. via Alt-F9), your mergefields should change appearance to something like:
{MERGEFIELD Name}{MERGEFIELD Address_1}{MERGEFIELD Address_2}{MERGEFIELD City}{MERGEFIELD State}{MERGEFIELD Post}
You can now add the required spacing, etc. between the }{ pairs. When you're done, toggle Word's field code display 'off' again (e.g. via Alt-F9).

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hi Paul,

Alt+F9 doesn't seem to do anything... any other way of toggling it on/off?

That suggests a faulty Office installation. Try repairing (via Start > Windows Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office (version) > Change > Repair).

As for an alternate means, go to File|Options|Advanced>Show document content and use the 'Show field codes instead of their values' option.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]