Date field inserting merge date in blank field

[Lesley]

I'm having a problem where the date that a document is merged is being inserted into the date field of the word document when it is void of data in the Access source table.



The Code for the field is:

{ MERGEFIELD Report_Date \@ "dd/MM/yyyy" }


This puts date in the format I want BUT the dates which are blank are given today's date

I'd be very grateful if anyone knows how I can fix it.

[Lesley]

Ah... I just thought, this is not happening in Access/Word 2010 - blanks are shown as blanks

I'm working on this for another person and their computer is running Access 2002 on Windows XP. Not sure what version of Word it is but probably quite old.

[macropod]

Since the user is running Access 2002 on Windows XP, it's quite likely they're also using Word 2002.

I suspect the issue is that the Access data default's to today's date when blank. If today's date is never valid, you could use an IF field to suppress it:
{IF{MERGEFIELD Report_Date \@ "dd/MM/yyyy"} <> {DATE \@ "dd/MM/yyyy"} {MERGEFIELD Report_Date \@ "dd/MM/yyyy"}}

Note: The field brace pairs (ie '{ }') for the above example are created in the body of the document via Ctrl-F9 (Cmd-F9 on a Mac) - you can't simply type them or copy & paste them from this message.

[Lesley]

The blank date fields are blank in the Access table rather than being populated with today's date, so I'm not sure it's Access rather than the mail merge that's doing it. BUT I'll try that switch.

Is there a way to put 0 (zero) or null into the switch ?

[macropod]

You can only test what's there (or not). Word is almost certainly not inserting today's date during the merge when the Access field is empty - it's more likely to be in the data coming from Access (i.e. it's how Access is storing your data).

[Lesley]

OK, thanks.

I'll get that tested out.