Hi Paul - thanks very much again for your help

I was hesitating before sending you the records and document because it's confidential information. I was going to give you an edited version without the confidential stuff, but realized that I would be changing the situation if I did, so I tried more stuff before doing so.

I still don't know why it wasn't working, but now it is - yeah, yeah, I know you hear that all the time, so yes, I realize ( also knew that all the time ) that it was clearly something I had done wrong.


I still don't know what I was doing wrong, but here's what I did that fixed it :

1. I went to the database and added another city column, populated it with the same data as the original column
2. the new column was way over to the right ( about Column Z in excel, about 26 in Word )
3. I added a new merge field for the new city column but couldn't get any of the columns on the far right to merge at all ( apparently I now had a new problem )
4. I went into EDIT RECIPIENT LIST
5. I changed the left-to-right order of the columns ( I didn't know you could do that, happened on it by accident, not sure why it is even an option )
6. I moved all the name-and-address columns to the left ( the original city column was F6, the new one was F22
7. SUDDENLY, both F6 and F22 are merging properly

SO - I"m still mystified but the thing is working and I"m sorry I wasted your time

thanks again, I really appreciate your willingness to spend time helping me.

best regards
woody