Mail Merge Switches Outlook Data

[Michael White]

Has anyone else had this problem? I'm using Word 2003 to create envelopes
and merging my Outlook 2003 contacts. When the MAIL MERGE RECIPIENTS window
pops up, the majority of my contacts zip code data says UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA and their zip codes are actually in the COUNTRY column.

I've tried to go back to my contact and reinput the data, but that doesn't
solve. I'd say 60% of my contacts show up with this error.

Any ideas?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I haven't come across this problem, but...
a. Are you initiating the merge from Outlook or by selecting the data
source from within Word?
b. if you look at /one/ of the "faulty" contacts in Outlook, and pop
up the box that shows how Outlook is currently interpreting the address
you entered, does it actually show the COUNTRY as UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA or as the zip code? (Normally Outlook gets this right as far as
I know, but perhaps your data was inserted in an unusual way and Outlook
assigned the various parts of the address to the wrong fields).

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Michael White]

Thanks, Peter for your help.

I am selecting the data source within Word.

To answer your second question, Outlook is getting it right. I've even
reinserted the info in Outlook to see if that helped and it was not
successful.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

As far as I know, this normally works (I will try to verify that at some
point), but
a. it might be bettter to switch to the other approach, i.e. initiate
the merge from Outlook using Outlook Tools->Mail Merge... (NB, you will
have to review the merge field names if you do that because the two
approaches use different ones.
b. I don't suppose you have any Word field mapping/matching set up
(e.g. for using ADDRESSBLOCK fields)?
c. a remote possibility is as follows:

When Word fetches the data from Outlook in the way you are doing it, it
uses quite a complicated method to do it - it's not particularly visible
to the end user, but Word makes a request to the Jet/ACE (Access) OLE DB
provider, and that uses a thing called the Outlook (or Exchange) IISAM
to get the data from Outlook, and /that/ has to create/modify some
entries in a SCHEMA.INI file that tell the provider what data to get
from Outlook and what names to give the resulting fields.

What I'm wondering is whether for some reason the IISAM is re-using some
existing SCHEMA.INI entries and returning the wrong data in the wrong
fields. In any case, it may be worth removing that .INI (if you can find
it) and any other temporary files that might be involved. As far as I
know, in Office 2003 the temp files are named OLKn.tmp, e.g. OLK1.tmp,
OLK2.tmp etc., and on Windows XP they would typically be found in

C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Local Settings\Temp

(which may be a hidden folder, so you may have to modify the Folder
Options in Windows Explorer to show it).


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk