International Characters in a merge field

[Jessica B.]

I am having some issues with international characters in a merge field. My
database shows the characters correctly but when I hook my document up to the
database word changes the symbols. Are their any settings I may have wrong?
or does anyone have any suggestions to fix this?

I am using word 2000.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Typically, neither of the methods Word uses to get mailmerge data in
Word 2000 (DDE and ODBC) return characters that are not either in the
ANSI (or Windows) character sets, or your system's base character set if
isn't ANSI (AFAIK this is what Microsoft sometimes refers to as the
OEM character set)

In Word 2002 and later you should get Unicode data if you are using an
OLE DB provider that handles Unicode correctly - Access/Jet and SQL
Server are at least reasonably OK on this front. But if your database
only has an ODBC driver, Unicode still may not get through. I've never
been able to work out whether that is a limitation of the specific ODBC
drivers I have or the way that Word uses them.

I think that in order to see these characters you might have to get your
source data in a separate step that uses a method that does work, into a
format (probably Word .doc format or .rtf format) that /will/ allow
Unicode data to reach Word. e.g. it may be possible if you write VBA to
get data via OLE DB, stuff it into a Word table and use that as a data
source. But I wouldn't be completely sure even about that without trying it.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Jessica B.]

These are basic characters in the windows character set. I do know that
these can import correctly in the formats that they currently are in because
we do have one workstation (same version of office, and windows) that does
import these correctly. That leads me to think that there is a setting on
these other workstations that is incorrect.

Are there any settings in word that involve importing or special characters
that I could check to make sure these are set correctly?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. What is the data source? If it is a plain text file, then Word will
typically use ODBC to open the file if ODBC is set up and the text
driver is present. Otherwise it will use its internal converter. Off the
top of my head, I couldn't tell you which of the two will work. You may
find that switching on Word Tools->Options->General->Confirm conversion
at open helps you to see what is going on.

2. It's probably worth verifying that the workstation that works is set
up with the same system locale as the ones that do not. You'll probably
find that in control Panel->Regional Settings.

There may be one or two other settings but I don't remember anything
that would affect Word 2000.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Jessica B.]

We have tracked down the issue here. I believe when this document was first
created we didn't specify that it was being hooked up to a FoxPro database.
When I created a new document that specified a FoxPro datatbase the
characters are importing correctly.

Thanks for your help.