mail merge labels duplicating info--why?

[chicago]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

In word, I am making labels from info from the office address book, selecting specific contacts through the "work" category. Everything works fine, except...

The labels include info that I have not selected in the data merge control box, such as USA and duplicate states and cities. (In other words, Virginia Beach, VI will appear twice, once where it is supposed to, and once where it should not.) Yes, I can delete the extra info, but when dealing with mass mailings, this is a very unproductive workaround. How can I correct this?

Thank you for the help!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

This could be a known problem in Word 2004 (there is a similar problem in
older versions of Windows Word when dealing with Excel data sources), but
perhaps best to have a closer look at what is in your mail merge main
document, so...

If you
a. make a backup copy of your mail merge main document
b. select the table that the labels are laid out in
c. use Table->Convert Table to Text
d. Separate text with Paragraph marks

then have a look at the fields defined for each label, do you see
duplications (I'm wondering if Word has added two lots of fields for some
rason, and pushed some down so you do not see them.

If that doesn't reveal anything unusual, ensure that the field codes are
displayed (so they look like { MERGEFIELD Firstname }) etc. and look again.

 

[chicago]

Just wanted to post back and say, with God's help, the solution is now evident. By the way, it took nearly 2 weeks for the answer to finally dawn on me.

Originally, I was entering in the merge fields the following: first name, last name, address, city, state, zipcode. It turns out word already includes city, state, and zipcode when you insert address. That's why it's duplicating the information. So now I simply insert first name, last name, address, which even includes the country. I suppose microsoft was trying to save me time, but in the end it was rather counter intuitive.

I thought I would post back in case anyone else is having problems.

Happy Holidays to everyone from Chicago!