I have an odd one

I'm creating a mail merge to print out envelopes. The document is in Word2010, the database is Excel2010

all the other fields I merge are working fine, but one of my fields comes out in the Word Document as 12:00:00 AM even though the source data is a text field ( the city of the address )



I"ve tried ensuring that the Excel data is formatted text, I"ve tried fiddling with the format of the receiving field ( it is formatted just like the others )

help, Please

Hi woody,

Your description suggests the field has mixed data types, not just city names, and Word has interpreted the field as containing dates/times. In such a scenario, text strings evaluate to 0 and may therefore appear as 12:00:00 AM.

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

Hi Paul - thanks very much for answering and helping, I appreciate it

If I understand what you mean by "field", that would be the column of data in the excel spreadsheet/database that contains all the city names, do I have that right ?

What you're suggesting was my first thought as well, however, I've been over the excel data, and it's all text ( and formatted as such ). Also, EVERY city name comes out wrong, not just some of them. Also, that column is formatted the same as the columns before and after it, but they are working fine.

any more thoughts ??

thanks a lot
woody

Hi Woody,

In this case, field = column.

Can you attach a workbook with some sample records and a mailmerge main document containing the corresponding mergefields to a post? You can do this via the paperclip symbol on the 'Go Advanced' tab.

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

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

Hi woody,

I'm glad you've got it sorted. FWIW, I don't regard it as wasting my time.

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

it's worth a lot , Paul, thanks again