How do you keep mail merge from indenting one space on the first .

[competitor]

Whenever I perform a mail merge, the first line of every record is indented
one space. How do I prevent this from happening? Also, if I use an excel
file for my recipient file and a field contains a numeric value with commas,
the comma never appears in the mail merge file. What do I need to do in
order to have the commas displayed?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

A few obvious things to consider:
Are there any leading spaces in your data records?
Is the "space" composed of space characters, or perhaps indents to do with
a paragraph layout or style?
What characters/field codes are there in your mail merge main document?

As for the commas in numeric fields, there are two approaches you can take:
Use DDE to connect to your Excel data, and you will /probably/ see the
commas (in Word 2002 and later, check Word Tools|Options|General|"Confirm
conversion at open", then go through the data source selection process again
and select the DDE option when prompted.
Use "Numeric field switches in your mergefields, e.g. instead of

{ MERGEFIELD mynumber }

try

{ MERGEFIELD mynumber \#$,0.00 }

These switches are documented in Word Help.

Peter Jamieson