mail merge and character styles

[Walt]

When we do a mail merge in Word 2002 the character styles
that we attached to words in the merge document do not
come through in the merged document. In fact, there are
character styles attached in the merged doc, but they are
not the ones we attached in the merge doc. It sort of
seems to arbitrarily assign these, though it is consistent
with every merge.

What can be done about this? We would like for the styles
we assigned to still be attached to the correct words
after the merge.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Walt,

Could you give us an example, please? I've never noticed Word
to drop character styles, generally, during mail merge.

1. Are these really characters STYLES?

2. Are they applied to text in the merge document? Or to
merge fields? Or to just parts of merge fields? Or to
something else?

3. What's the data source?

When we do a mail merge in Word 2002 the character styles
that we attached to words in the merge document do not
come through in the merged document. In fact, there are
character styles attached in the merged doc, but they are
not the ones we attached in the merge doc. It sort of
seems to arbitrarily assign these, though it is consistent
with every merge.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow
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[Walt]

1. Yes, these are really character STYLES. They are styles
that I defined, but they still are character styles.

2. I attached the styles to merge fields in the merge doc.

3. The data source didn't seem to matter. I tried it from
Excel, a text file, and a Word Doc. All the same.

I suggest you try it out yourself to see. Do you have any
advice? It seems to just be something buggy about Word's
mail merge.

Walt

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Walt,

I just wanted to be sure I understand exactly what you're
doing. If you're applying the character formatting to the
merge field, only, then I suggest you do this:

- Alt+F9 to view the field code
- At the end of the mergefields having the problem, add the
\* CharFormat switch. Example:
{ Mergefield XAZ \* CharFormat }

- Alt+F9 again to turn off the field codes

1. Yes, these are really character STYLES. They are styles
that I defined, but they still are character styles.

2. I attached the styles to merge fields in the merge doc.

3. The data source didn't seem to matter. I tried it from
Excel, a text file, and a Word Doc. All the same.

I suggest you try it out yourself to see. Do you have any
advice? It seems to just be something buggy about Word's
mail merge.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow
question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Walt]

May 12, 2004
Three cheers for Cindy Meister!!

Well done. The \* CharFormat switch did the trick.

Thanks a ton!

Walt

 

[Sandy]

Beaut! I have only ONE document that does this always...
it kept putting the merged info into another font,
notwithstanding I changed the *mergeformat to comply with
the font of the source document and notwithstanding I
created a whole new document and did the Ctrl A...apply
specific font to entire doc. I will try this asap when I
get back to work.

Sandy