mail merge random missing text

Question

I am doing a mail merge using Word 2007 with Excel 2007 as the source and when I view the results random text is missing. When I view the source file the cell in question contains all the required text (a few sentences) but this cuts off mid sentence when viewing in word.

The Word doc is very simple, being two pages with approx 180 mail merge fields and very little normal text.

The Excel source is fairly complex with lots of sheets and formulas with the results of formulas determining what text is displayed in an index with the resulting index being the data I want to pull through into word.  

Any assistance would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

You will need to make sure that the first record (make it a dummy record if necessary) contains more that 255 characters in the fields with which you are experiencing the issue.

The reason for this is that Word determines the type of data in each field by inspecting the first records in the data source and if the first record does not contain more than that number of characters in the field, it will be treated as a 'text' field, which cannot have more than 255 characters rather than a 'memo' field, for which there is no limit.

-- Hope this helps.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP,

dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

Posted via the Community Bridge

"nytu" wrote in message news:*** Email address is removed for privacy ***...

I am doing a mail merge using Word 2007 with Excel 2007 as the source and when I view the results random text is missing. When I view the source file the cell in question contains all the required text (a few sentences) but this cuts off mid sentence when viewing in word.

The Word doc is very simple, being two pages with approx 180 mail merge fields and very little normal text.

The Excel source is fairly complex with lots of sheets and formulas with the results of formulas determining what text is displayed in an index with the resulting index being the data I want to pull through into word.

Any assistance would be much appreciated.

---

Doug Robbins - Word MVP dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

Answer 2

You will need to make sure that the first record (make it a dummy record if necessary) contains more that 255 characters in the fields with which you are experiencing the issue.

The reason for this is that Word determines the type of data in each field by inspecting the first records in the data source and if the first record does not contain more than that number of characters in the field, it will be treated as a 'text' field, which cannot have more than 255 characters rather than a 'memo' field, for which there is no limit.

-- Hope this helps.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP,

dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

Posted via the Community Bridge

"nytu" wrote in message news:*** Email address is removed for privacy ***...

I am doing a mail merge using Word 2007 with Excel 2007 as the source and when I view the results random text is missing. When I view the source file the cell in question contains all the required text (a few sentences) but this cuts off mid sentence when viewing in word.

The Word doc is very simple, being two pages with approx 180 mail merge fields and very little normal text.

The Excel source is fairly complex with lots of sheets and formulas with the results of formulas determining what text is displayed in an index with the resulting index being the data I want to pull through into word.

Any assistance would be much appreciated.

---

Doug Robbins - Word MVP dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

*whew*

After 18 months of stress and having to do my merges in small batches (after re-sorting data a few fields at a time) this solution finally appears to be "the one" :-))

I'm doing some more testing and triple-checking but it appears to have done the trick.

Thank you SO much!!!

Gk

Answer 3

Is the other source also an Excel spreadsheet?

If it is, compare the formatting of the cells in the two spreadsheets to see if there is any difference between them.

-- Hope this helps.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP,

dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

Posted via the Community Bridge

"nytu" wrote in message news:*** Email address is removed for privacy ***...

Hi Doug, I am still unable to resolve the issue although you must be on the right lines as each field does cut off at 255 characters exactly.

I inserted a row at row 2 of my spreadsheet and filled cells A2 to CP2 with text more than 255 characters, however when i re-merge using either the same word document or a new one I get the same problem.

This appears to be a problem with excel as I have a different source that works with any word mailmerge document (even without the extra row). Then I have the 'problem source' which doesn't work whatever I try.

Can you suggest anything further?

---

Doug Robbins - Word MVP dkr[atsymbol]mvps[dot]org

Answer 4

Hi Doug, I am still unable to resolve the issue although you must be on the right lines as each field does cut off at 255 characters exactly.

I inserted a row at row 2 of my spreadsheet and filled cells A2 to CP2 with text more than 255 characters, however when i re-merge using either the same word document or a new one I get the same problem.

This appears to be a problem with excel as I have a different source that works with any word mailmerge document (even without the extra row). Then I have the 'problem source' which doesn't work whatever I try.

Can you suggest anything further?

Answer 5

Thank you Doug Robbins

You're a life saver.

This post has resolved a problem I have been facing for the last two years.

Thanks a lot once again.