Difficulties mail merging special characters from excel to word 20

[Nondejuu]

The following is the problem description:

We have enormous difficulties with printing letters etc. for our Czech and
Slovak customers. The problem is the Hyphenations. Especially when you have
to do a mail merge (word letter with excel data source). The problem is that
after a letter merge the result of the letters contain lots of question
marks. These question marks show up in the text at the places where (for us
special) letters have been used. The computer just doesn't recognize these
(for us special) letters.


The following is what we have done so far:

We are using office 2000. I have looked in knowledge bases on microsoft.com
and the rest of internet but can't find something about this issue which
helps me further. The special characters are displayed and printed correctly
from excel. But when merged to word, they are replaced by (red) question
marks. It seems to me then this isn't a font case. Also, when just cut and
paste from execel to word the characters are displayed and printed correctly.
I have also changed the default printer between pcl en ps printer drivers.
This also doesn't make any difference for the merge. Have you any idea where
to look?

Thanks in advance for your response!

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

From the Tools menu in Word, select Options and go to the General tab and
then check the box against the item "Confirm conversions at open". After
doing this, when you attach the data source to the mailmerge main document,
you will be asked which connection method to use. Try the different methods
that are offered and see if one of them overcomes the problem - probably the
DDE option.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP