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Old 05-24-2018, 04:58 AM
Tom SheehaN Tom SheehaN is offline Windows 10 Office 2016
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Default Special Characters Unexpectly Change during Mail Merge with HTML MergeSource

Hi,

I have a mail merge which is using a HTML file as the data source. In the file there are fields which contain a text string which is a code 128 encoded barcode something like:
ÒÏ!%%Y/_n113%6*ÍDK8Ìe>Í-1fÓ

In some circumstances this is being changed during the mail merge to
メマ!%%Y/_n113%6*ヘDK8フe>ヘ-1fモ

The characters which are substituted in are not in the Code128 Character set so the barcodes do not print correctly.

This doesn't happen all the time. I took a working file and a non-working file and created a file with two records. If I put the record from the working file first both records are merged correctly, if I put the non-working record first then both records print incorrectly.
I have included two sample files (GOOD_SOURCE and BAD SOURCE) which I needed to rename to txt files to be able to upload them here.
The picture shows how these two files appear in the Edit Recipients screen.
I've tried this in Word 2010 and Word 2016 with identical results. I think that because you can see the issue in the Edit Recipients screen this is happening when word is reading the data rather than doing the mail merge. I get the same results if I use a blank document, or if I use the formatted document.

I guess Word must be investigating the first record and deciding to change the data for some reason.

Any help with this will be greatly appreciated.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg GoodAndBackEditRecipients.jpg (138.6 KB, 10 views)
Attached Files
File Type: txt GOOD_SOURCE.txt (4.3 KB, 6 views)
File Type: txt BAD_SOURCE.txt (4.4 KB, 6 views)
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