Home Phone field not getting picked up in Merge

[Cathleen McGuire]

I am trying to do a mailmerge my Outlook Contacts into a Directory so that I
can print the results and then physically paste them into my manual address
book. (Office version 2002)

It’s driving me up a wall, but Home Phone just will not materialize. Every
other field value gets populated except for Home Phone.

I get to Step 4 (“Arrange Your Directoryâ€) and select the last option, “More
Items …†to insert the field names into the master directory document I’m
creating. (On the Mail Merge tool bar, the “More Items†icon is called
“Insert Merge Fieldsâ€)

While in the Insert Merge Fields window, one can select Address Fields or
Database
Fields. I don’t understand the difference between either of those options,
but whatever. I try them both.

If I select the Address Fields option, there is a Home Phone field, but as I
said, it doesn’t populate when the merge is run. The Home Phone post-merge
values are left blank.

If I select the Database Fields options, there is no Home Phone option. (Go
figure). So I click on “Match Fields†at the bottom of the window in order to
“use the dropdown lists to choose the field from your database that
corresponds to the address information Mail Merge expects.†Whatever that
means.

So I find the Home Phone field in the Match Fields options, but (true to
Microsoft form) the dropdown box says “not available.†Great!

So how do I do a merge of my Contacts database so that the all-important
Home Phone numbers appear? I’ve tried to do the Merge both from within
Outlooks Contacts as well as from within Word. Both give me the same cockeyed
results as I’ve outlined above.

This is driving me crazy!!! Any and all help greatly appreciated.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Initiate the mailmerge from Outlook.

See the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website
at
http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm


--
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

 

[Cathleen McGuire]

Hi Doug -- I read about that URL in a similar past post. It was not helpful
as there was zero mentioned about the merge problems associated with the Home
Phone field.

If you have the time and inclination, please review my explanation of this
problem again. I think I laid out in sufficient detail what the problem is
and why all the possible paths don't work.

If anyone has a concrete solution as to how to get the Outlook Contacts Home
Phone field to merge, I'd very much appreciate it.

Thanks, Cathleen

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you start the merge from Outlook *all* the contacts fields are available
for merge. There was no mention of the home phone field because there are no
problems associated with this field. Start the merge from Outlook then when
it hands over to Word select insert merge field from the merge toolbar (see
the link at the bottom of the web page) and pick the Home_Phone field. You
don't have to link the data it is already linked. If you attempt to link the
data from Word, then you cancel the connection you have already made to
Outlook. This is explained in the article.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Cathleen McGuire]

Hi Graham -- It works!

I could have sworn on one of my earlier iterations I had done the merge
exactly how you laid it out. Whatever.

I'm not going to try and recapitulate what I did vis-a-vis your
instructions. I'm just grateful it now works and I thank you and Doug so much
for taking the time to help me.

Cathleen