More Mail Merge truncating

[cheshirecat]

I've been reading the threads and trying the advice to no avail. When I merge
into Word 2003 from an Excel spreadsheet that's pulling data off a SQL
Server, two fields are truncated at 255, but a third is not. I've tried
padding the first row, but it doesn't work, nor does chosing the connection
method. Any ideas?

thanks,
Linda

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Have you confirmed that the data is complete in the Excel spreadsheet?
Maybe the truncation is between the SQL Server and Excel.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[cheshirecat]

Yes, I have. The data is complete in Excel.

Have you confirmed that the data is complete in the Excel spreadsheet?
Maybe the truncation is between the SQL Server and Excel.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Then you need to look at the difference between the data for the one field
that merges correctly and those that don't.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[cheshirecat]

where would I look? in Excel? In Word? In SQL? Does it matter how the field
types are defined in SQL? I've copied data from the incorrectly merging
fields into Word and Notepad to compare them against what's working and the
only noticible difference in the non-truncating fields is that they start and
end with angle brackets (because it's XML strings).

 

[Peter Jamieson]

The trouble with "the advice" is that none of the methods of connecting to
Excel data (or any other kind of data) can be guaranteed to do what you
need: each has its own limitations, and there are quite a few.

In this case, are you in a position to connect directly to the SQL Server?
If so, that still may not solve the problem, but it may well cut out the
"middle man".

Peter Jamieson

 

[cheshirecat]

I didn't want to go that route since I don't know SQL, but found a colleague
who does and we think this will work just fine. Thanks to everyone!

 

[egordon]

Did anyone ever find an answer to this? I'm having the same problem...

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. The answer that seemed to work for the original poster was
"connecting directly to SQL Server" - is that an option for you?

2. Can you be more precise about how you are padding the first row? IMO
a necessary condition for this to work would be that the cell in the
column where the data is truncated would need to contain a string which
was longer than 255 characters after trailing white space (and possibly
leading white space) is removed.. However, that may well not be a
sufficient condition.
Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk