Mail Merge Problems w/ ZIP Code

[Doug Bishop]

I am trying to do a mail merge from an Excel sheet into
Word. I have the field ZIP code, which has both 5-digit
and +4 (with formatting included in the field. The column
is formatted as text. However, the 5-digit ZIP Codes merge
properly, but the +4 ZIPs all merge as 0. I've played with
formatting on the Excel side until I'm blue in the face.
Any suggestions???

Doug

 

[Peter Jamieson]

A few things to consider
- if you made your column Text format, did you disconnect from your Excel
document and reconnect? Word will probably not recognise format changes
until you do.
- If you are using Office 2002, you can try reverting to the older DDE
connection method to connect to your spreadsheet (Check
Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversions at open", go through the
connection process again, and select the DDE option when prompted
- if you can make your Zip codes pure numbers (i.e. 5 or 9 digit numbers,
without any hyphens in them), then you should be able to format the ZIP
codes correctly within Word, using e.g.

{ IF { MERGEFIELD myzip } > 99999
"{ MERGEFIELD myzip \#"00000'-'0000" }"
"{ MERGEFIELD myzip \#"00000" }-0000" }

if you always want a 5-4 format, or

{ IF { MERGEFIELD myzip } > 99999
"{ MERGEFIELD myzip \#"00000'-'0000" }"
"{ MERGEFIELD myzip \#"00000" }" }

otherwise.