Mail Merge using an Excel Spreadsheet

[Billvonz]

I am currently using an Excel spreadsheet as a database for a mail merge. One
of the columns in the spreadsheet has cells with large amounts of text in
them. When I do the merge only half of the text within the cells of that
column are coming over into the merge. How can I get all of the text within
that columns cells to appear in the final merge documents? The rest of the
spreadsheet is coming through just fine. It's that one column that is making
me crazy. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance
Bill
NYC

 

[Peter Jamieson]

This problem has been raised quite a lot, but which version of Word is this?
Ways you may be able to make progress are:
a. change the way Word connects to the data source (in Word 97/2000 it's
via DDE by default, but you can use ODBC or the Excel converter. In Word
2002/2003 you can use OLEDB as well. In the former, click the "Select
Method" box in the Open Data Source to choose the connection method. In Word
2002/2003 you have to check Tools|Options|General|Confirm conversion at open
then go through data source selection again. Changing the connection method
is likely to have an imapct on how merge field results are displayed.
b. convert your spreadsheet to a Word document then use that as the merge
data source. There are various possible ways of doing that, e.g.
- use Word Open|File to open the Excel .xls and specify the correct
converter.
- use Insert|File into a blank document (has more or less the same effect)
- use Insert|Object|Cretae from file, and LINK to the file. Then display
the LINK field code and change the \p switch to \h or \r, then select the
field and press F9. If you do this, you can save the document, then reopen
it when you want to merge, select and press F9 and you should see the
current version of the spreadsheet.
- copy/paste or paste special from Excel to Word ensuring that you end up
with a text format.

In all cases you will have more difficulty if the sheet you ned is not the
first in the workbook.