I am attempting to do the following formula in a mail merge field in Word:

FORMULA IN WORD { = (1 - ((1+(2/100))*(0.995))^19)}

When I enter this formula in a Word mail merge field, I get 2.324

However, when I do the formula in excel, I get -0.3244 (the correct answer)

FORMULA IN EXCEL =(1 - ((1+2/100)*(0.995))^19)

I am driving myself CRAZY! I do not understand what in the world is going on. I believe the Excel value is correct. I have tried everything. I know Word has its peculiarities in Mail Merge and maybe this is something. I have consulted the usual sources (Graham Mayor, etc) and the forums and Google with nooooo luck. Please help!

Your Word and Excel formulae can both be reduced to:
=1-((1+2/100)*0.995)^19
and, with the appropriate formatting switch applied to the field in Word:
{=1-((1+2/100)*0.995)^19 \# 0.00000}
will both return -0.32447. That said, there does seem to be a bug in the Word calculation when you unnecessarily use (0.995) in the calculation; that seems to cause Word to treat the 0.995 as a -ve value.

I don't see what this has to do with a mailmerge, however, as no mergefields are involved.

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

That worked! Thank you!
Yes definitely some error on Word's part with the parenthesis issue.
This is indeed a mail-merge field, but I took it out and replaced it with 0.995 because the mail merge field itself was not an issue with the equation. Next time I post I will categorize it better. Thanks