mail merge excel to word text

[Emily]

It seems there is a maximum allowable text length when merging from Excel to
Word. One of my merge fields is a text description that can range anywhere
from a couple sentences to an entire paragraph. It seems to cut off after a
certain number of characters. Is there any way I can fix this? I know you
can choose an unlimited text length when using the form textboxes, is there a
way to do the same in a mail merge?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

From the Tools menu in Word, select Options and then go to the General tab
and check the box against "Confirm conversions at open" Then when you
attach the data source, choose the DDE option in the dialog box that asks
you for the method by which the connection to the data source should be
made. I think that this will overcome the 255 character limit that you are
up against at the moment.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Karen]

Didn't work for me I'm afraid. Changed the option, closed Word then tried
again but it still only gave me 255 chars. I've got around it by splitting
the long comment in two but this is a not the ideal solution.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If possible, try ensuring that one of the first 8 cells in the column in
question has more than 255 characters in it (e.g. you may be able to create
a dummy record like that at the beginning of the sheet and then exclude it
from the merge).

(See http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0003.htm for a lengthy explanation)