Merge number format

[TJ]

I know that this has been answered somewhat, however I have found no post
which have the exact issue.

We have a Works database which was exported to a Excel spreadsheet. The
formatting in the worksheet is something like this.

Excel XP workbook

Mar April May June July Aug
Sep
$30.00 $15.00 $15.00 $30.00 $30.00 $30.00 $30.00

Mar, April, May, and June values were all exported from the Works database.
July, Aug, and Sep values added in Excel. All are formatted the same.


The problem is when we merge to a Word document only the values typed in
Excel retain formatting for my example would look like this:

Word XP doc

Mar April May June July Aug
Sep
30 15 15 30 $30.00 $30.00
$30.00

If we manually edit a cell in Excel, the formatting shows properly in Word;
for example if we were to just edit the Mar value it would look like this in
the Word document:

Mar April May June July Aug
Sep
$30.00 15 15 30 $30.00 $30.00 $30.00

The field codes in Word all are formated the same, I understand that I could
add $#.00 formating in the field codes but that brings up another problem.

Can you help?
Ted

 

[Cindy Meister -WordMVP-]

Hi Tj,

Did you type in the $ in the fields where it's being retained? If so, that
would explain what you're seeing. As soon as you type something that's not a
number into a cell, Excel considers the content to be pure text. The other
cells probably have a NUMBER FORMAT applied, and in reality contain only the
numbers.

Easiest for you would probably be to use a DDE connection method, so that
Word pulls in exactly what the cells display. You'll find instructions on how
to change the connection method for Word 2002 in that section of my website's
mail merge FAQ.

We have a Works database which was exported to a Excel spreadsheet. The
formatting in the worksheet is something like this.

Excel XP workbook

Mar April May June July Aug
Sep
$30.00 $15.00 $15.00 $30.00 $30.00 $30.00 $30.00

Mar, April, May, and June values were all exported from the Works database.
July, Aug, and Sep values added in Excel. All are formatted the same.


The problem is when we merge to a Word document only the values typed in
Excel retain formatting

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

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[TJ]

All the fileds have just the amounts, and are formated as currency, there
are no 'hard coded" $. I think it might be and Excel Issue. If I copy all
the cells and paste them elsewhere I get the same resutls. All the Works
generated Cells do not show the formating in Word, all the Excel enterned
cells do show the formating.

I can find no difference in the way they are formateded in Excel, it is just
strange.

TJ

 

[TJ]

I did ask in the Excel Group, some others have experienced similar trouble.
I have tried other connections, and DDE seems to work, however there are
some issues in using DDE which make it not the best for this application.
The client who is attempting the merge is an hour and a half away and they
are not the most sophisticated computer users. Any additional steps will
cause me many hours of phone time with them.

I would like to find out what is the cause of this odd behavior. In my case
the file was exported to a tab delimited text file before importing into
Excel. Only the cells which contain the text file data exhibit this
problem of not showing format in the merge. In Excel everything looks
great.

TJ