2007 Word Mail Merge

[Lisa@Pru]

Is there a limit to how many fields you can have in a mail merge in Word
2007? Excel 2007 now has more than 255 columns, which I need for this
project.

I anticipate having over 500 fields - is this even possible? I knew it
wasn't in the 2003 version due to Excel's column limits. I was hoping that
this would change with 2007.

Thanks!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Despite the fact that Excel 2007 allows more than 255 columns, you still
cannot get more than 255 columns from Excel when it is used as a Mail
Merge data source (unless something has changed in Office 2007 SP2).

If you have fairly simple data that is not multiline, your best bet is
probably to copy/paste the data into Word (as soon as you have more
columns than Word can support, Word should paste the data in a
tab-delimited format), save that, and use it as a data source.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Lisa@Pru]

Thanks Peter. I've tried saving the data in Excel as a .TXT file, but I
can't get the merge document to recognize the file.

I've tried saving the Excel file as a .CSV file, but when I merged it,
everything was blank.

If using a .txt file, in the Confirm Data Source box, do I select something
that shows an extension of .txt? I don't see such an entry so I'm chopsing
the wide open one (*.*).

Thoughts?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

In Word 2007, with both .txt and .csv files, you need to get Word to use
its internal text converter (otherwise it will use the ODBC driver or
OLE DB provider and will still only see 255 columns). Since the Text
files option is no longer displayed in "Confirm Data Source" (no idea
why), your best bet is to
a. check Show All
b. select "All Word Documents"

(you can't see the full list of extensions that that is supposed to
cover, and elsewhere similar lists suggest that .txt and .csv are not
covered, but I think Word tries to do the right thing even so)

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Lisa@Pru]

Peter - it looks like you may have attempted to reply but the screen is
blank. Any thoughts you have on the subject would be appreciated.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Second attempt...

In Word 2007, with both .txt and .csv files, you need to get Word to use
its internal text converter (otherwise it will use the ODBC driver or
OLE DB provider and will still only see 255 columns). Since the Text
files option is no longer displayed in "Confirm Data Source" (no idea
why), your best bet is to
a. check Show All
b. select "All Word Documents"

(you can't see the full list of extensions that that is supposed to
cover, and elsewhere similar lists suggest that .txt and .csv are not
covered, but I think Word tries to do the right thing even so)

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk