Occasional Incorrect Data from Excel

[Mitchell]

I have been unable to figure out why my Word Merge imports some inaccurate data from Excel on an inconsistent basis. There is probably a pattern, but I have not been able to see it. My document is a catalog merge creating a report from a flat file in excel with about 60 fields, though not all are used in the document. There are some conditionals, but I have used this for years with problems. The errors are in the final fields of the catalog merge. The merge fields are in a Word table. The last column retrieves the last data fields which are often empty. Yet, in an apparent random fashion, some lines show data from a field where there was no data in the excel file. The data is a proper looking piece, a alphanumeric code, but should not merged with the record it has.

I have recently switched to Office 2003. I realize this is a little difficult to articulate, so let me know if more is need to understand the problem or question. This is my first time to post here. I have sought answers from the MS Knowledgebase. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Mitchell

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWl0Y2hlbGw=?=,

I have been unable to figure out why my Word Merge imports some inaccurate data

from Excel on an inconsistent basis. There is probably a pattern, but I have not been
able to see it. My document is a catalog merge creating a report from a flat file in
excel with about 60 fields, though not all are used in the document. There are some
conditionals, but I have used this for years with problems. The errors are in the
final fields of the catalog merge. The merge fields are in a Word table. The last
column retrieves the last data fields which are often empty. Yet, in an apparent
random fashion, some lines show data from a field where there was no data in the
excel file. The data is a proper looking piece, a alphanumeric code, but should not
merged with the record it has.

I have recently switched to Office 2003.

Word 2002/2003 switched to a different default connection for mail merge data, called
OLEDB. The problem you describe crops up with Excel, and the only thing you can do is
try a different connection method.

Activate Tools/OPtions/General/Confirm conversions on open. Now select the Excel file
again as the data source. You should get prompted to choose from three or four
different connection methods, try DDE. If that gives you problems, try ODBC.

If you don't see your data range in the list of tables, click "Option", then activate
"System tables".

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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