Mail Merge does not accept em or en dash

[katherineb]

I am trying to send a letter using mail merge w/ word 2011. However, in the emails it generates, the em dash is replaced with a very small <, or doesn't show it at all. I've tried to both use an en and em dash, and neither work.

Can't figure it out. Thanks for the help!

[macropod]

What you're describing may be a limitation of the fairly simple converter Word for Mac uses for mailmerges or a limitation of merging to email on that platform. If you merge to a new document, inspecting the output should be sufficient to let you know where the problem occurs. If the dashes reproduce correctly when merged to a document, the problem is in the email conversion; otherwise it's a mailmerge limitation. Either way, though, you may need to use something different (e.g. single & double standard hyphens in the data source) to simulate the required output.