mail merging with word - "automated addressing"

[DP]

Just got Word and Access upgraded from 2000 to 2002. Now,
one of the fields in my query, which incorporates a
person's full name, title, and mailing address, gets
stripped of the name when I put it into a Word mail
merge... it seems to think it's helping me by removing the
person's name from the field! Suddenly, "Mr Joe Blow, Sr.,
Administrative Assistant to so-and-so..." is
just "Administrative Assistant to so-and-so..." when
inserted in Word...???

 

[Peter Jamieson]

How are you
a. creating the field(s) in Access
b. inserting the field(s) in Word?

From your description, I thought you might be using an Access query to
stitch together various parts of an address, e.g.

SELECT title & ' ' & firstname & ' ' & lastname & chr(13) & chr(10) &
address1 & chr(13) & chr(10) etc.
AS 'fulladdress'
FROM mytable

There did not seem to be a problem with that approach here, so maybe you are
doing something else. Are you using an ADDRESSBLOCK field?

 

[DP]

The stitched-together field is called "INSTFULLADDRESS",
and is generated and saved in an Access query which I then
link to my Word document. When I insert that field into a
letter (no addressblock field used) by any of the
following procedures:

1. "insert merge fields" from the mail merge toolbar
2. Insert|Field|MergeField through the menu bar
3. Ctrl+F9 to generate a blank merge field, then type the
field name

it skips the first line and starts with the second
instead. This used to work fine before I was updated to
2002, and still works fine in Access reports.

Access Code is as follows ([FULLNAME]and [FULLAPPTADDRESS]
are "stitched" fields as well):

INSTFULLADDRESS: [FULLNAME]+Chr(13)+Chr(10) &
[FULLAPPTADDRESS]+Chr(13)+Chr(10) & [strAddress]+Chr(13)
+Chr(10) & [@@@INSTADD.City] & ", " & [@@@INSTADD.Prov]
& " " & [@@@INSTADD.PostalCode]

It's probably something really basic, but for the life of
me I can't figure out why a merge field that had been
working perfectly for months suddenly went gaga after an
upgrade.

Thanks for your help.

DP

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Nothing really springs to mind, but...

It's probably something really basic

....not necessarily, as merge has changed quite a lot in Word 2002 and there
may be a problem with the method Word is using to execute the Access query.
One thing it is cerainly worth trying is reverting to the old default
connection method (DDE) - check Word Tools|Options|General|Confirm
conversion at open, then reconnect to the data source and select the DDE
option when prompted.

I haven't tried seeing if the OLEDB connection method does something
different with the "nested" strings you have (FULLNAME and FULLAPPTADDRESS)
but maybe something is different there. Also, is the total length of the
INSTFULLADDRESS ever above 255 characters?

--
Peter Jamieson
MS Word MVP

The stitched-together field is called "INSTFULLADDRESS",
and is generated and saved in an Access query which I then
link to my Word document. When I insert that field into a
letter (no addressblock field used) by any of the
following procedures:

1. "insert merge fields" from the mail merge toolbar
2. Insert|Field|MergeField through the menu bar
3. Ctrl+F9 to generate a blank merge field, then type the
field name

it skips the first line and starts with the second
instead. This used to work fine before I was updated to
2002, and still works fine in Access reports.

Access Code is as follows ([FULLNAME]and [FULLAPPTADDRESS]
are "stitched" fields as well):

INSTFULLADDRESS: [FULLNAME]+Chr(13)+Chr(10) &
[FULLAPPTADDRESS]+Chr(13)+Chr(10) & [strAddress]+Chr(13)
+Chr(10) & [@@@INSTADD.City] & ", " & [@@@INSTADD.Prov]
& " " & [@@@INSTADD.PostalCode]

It's probably something really basic, but for the life of
me I can't figure out why a merge field that had been
working perfectly for months suddenly went gaga after an
upgrade.

Thanks for your help.

DP

-----Original Message-----
How are you
a. creating the field(s) in Access
b. inserting the field(s) in Word?

From your description, I thought you might be using an Access query to
stitch together various parts of an address, e.g.

SELECT title & ' ' & firstname & ' ' & lastname & chr(13) & chr(10) &
address1 & chr(13) & chr(10) etc.
AS 'fulladdress'
FROM mytable

There did not seem to be a problem with that approach here, so maybe you are
doing something else. Are you using an ADDRESSBLOCK field?

 

[Cindy Meister -WordMVP-]

Hi Dp,

Access Code is as follows ([FULLNAME]and [FULLAPPTADDRESS]
are "stitched" fields as well):

INSTFULLADDRESS: [FULLNAME]+Chr(13)+Chr(10)

In addition to Peter's thoughts, here are some additional
ones:

1) Try sending only Chr(13) to Word, not 13+10.

2) Please show use the "stiched together" FullName and
FullApptAddress expressions, as well. Are these within the
same Query? If so, do they precede InstFUllAddress in the
query grid / SQL statement?

3) I have, on occasion, noticed strange behavior with Access
query expressions if the actual fields that are part of an
expression aren't included in the query grid. It's not
something I can always reproduce, just sometimes... You may
want to make sure all the fields used in any "stiched
together" fields are also in the query grid, just to see if
that makes a difference

4) You might also want to try generating the "stiched
together" stuff in a separate query, then pull this into the
query you're using as the data source. Sometimes, having this
kind of stuff execute in full before it gets passed to Word
helps.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jan
24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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