Adding additional Fields to a document

[G.G. Biggar, Jr.]

I am using Word 2000. I have a Word merge document that accesses an Excel
data source. The Field names are contained in the first row of the Excel
document. the problem occurs when I go to add a new Field to the Data
source (i.e., Manage Fields). I hit the Add button after typing in the name
of the new Field, but I receive a response that "this exceeds the maximum
width," regardless of the size of the Field name (one or more characters).

What am I dong wrong?

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi G.G.,

I am using Word 2000. I have a Word merge document that accesses an Excel
data source. The Field names are contained in the first row of the Excel
document. the problem occurs when I go to add a new Field to the Data
source (i.e., Manage Fields). I hit the Add button after typing in the name
of the new Field, but I receive a response that "this exceeds the maximum
width," regardless of the size of the Field name (one or more characters).

Hmmm, normally these data management tools shouldn't work with an Excel
source. Or, if they do, it means you've explicitly linked up using the
spreadsheet converter? I would highly recommend you open the Excel file and
add the column and data directly into Excel (it also has a "data form", if
that's important to you). You may then need to reopen the main merge document
after saving the changes made in Excel, or even re-attach the Excel file as
the datasource in order to see the new field(s).

The error message you describe is a known problem in Word 2000 for WORD data
sources (Word tables). It comes from the introduction of "internet"
functionality for tables: the columns can expand their width according to the
content instead of having a fixed width. The way to get rid of the error
message is to actually open the Word document the table is in and change the
setting so that the columns cannot resize automatically.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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[G.G. Biggar, Jr.]

Hello, Cindy M!

Trust that all is well on your side of the world.

I had not tackled making changes directly to the Excel database, thinking
that new fields had to be added formally via the Word merge document.
However, with some experimentation I learned that I could directly add
columns (and new field names in the first row) to the Excel data source,
which would then become available to the source Word merge document. Piece
de gateaux (or some thing like that...).

The reason that I am using an Excel data source is that I receive client
information via the Internet in a spreadsheet form. Since the data source
is in the same order as the incoming data, I can strip out the columns that
I require and paste them directly to the data source. Someone once told me
that if I used an Access file instead for the data source, then I could link
the incoming spreadsheet to the Access database -- without having to do any
cutting and pasting. A project for a more leisurely day..

Thanks for your post.

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi G.G.,

Trust that all is well on your side of the world.

Not too bad; sunny day and mild (well, for here)

Glad you have things working, now. FWIW, I consider Excel
generally to be the best "all-purpose" data source for mail
merge.

Cindy Meister