How do I drop right most character of a merge field

[Terry]

I have a 9 digit number in merge field data that is used
in a couple of places in the form letter but I want to
insert the first 8 digits into another place on the form
letter. I have found the General Switch x that drops
digits to the left but I don't see a switch that drops
digits to the right. This number is a whole number (no
decimal points)
I basically need to insert a merge field substring
starting at position 1 for a length of 8.
I also tried to insert a backspace after the merge but
couldn't get it to work either.
I am using Word 2000 but a fix for Word 2002 would also
help.
At this point the only way I have found is with a macro
(not the prefered solution)

 

[Peter Jamieson]

You can try { =int({ MERGEFIELD mynumber }/10) \#"00000000" }

All the {} need to be the special field codes you can insert with ctrl-F9

(the numeric picture is there to retain leading zeroes).