Problem with mail merge with foreign right-to-left language

[wcsdropout]

I have Windows XP with Microsoft Office 2000 Professional. I installed
Hebrew language support and am using a Yiddish keyboard layout. I have an
Excel
spreadsheet with vocabulary words -- 1 column English and 1 Yiddish, and am
trying to print out the Yiddish Words to Microsoft Word "labels" using Mail
Merge. However, whenever I try to merge them, I get "????" in all the
fields. I have tried changing all my column headers to English language, but
that doesn't help.

Has anyone dealt with this problem before?

 

[Graham Mayor]

I have never done this with Yiddish, but with Greek and English where the
issues are similar:

1. From Tools > options > general - set Confirm conversion on open. When you
open add data file to the merge document - choose the OLE DB database
option. This works for Word 2003 and I am pretty sure that the same option
was available in Word 2000.
2. Change any \*mergeformat switch on the mergefield to a \*charformat
switch or add a \charformat switch if there is no \*mergeformat switch:
http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm
3. Set the language of the field to Yiddish.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Peter Jamieson]

The problem is that none of the "connection methods" available for getting
Excel data in Word 2000 (DDE, ODBC, and the Excel Converter) will preserve
the Hebrew characters.

The simplest workaround is probably
a. open your Excel sheet
b. select the data
c. Edit|Copy
d. open a blank Word document
e. Edit|Paste

This can only work if you have around 63 columns or less in your
spreadsheet - otherwise, you will need to remove some columns before
copying.

Use the Word document as your data source. I can't re-test that on Word 2000
right now. It certainly works on Word 2003, with correct preservation of the
right-to-left sequence.

Peter Jamieson

 

[wcsdropout]

Hi Graham,
Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, it is not working for me yet.
When I select the "Select Method" Checkbox when I open the data source, I
get 3 options: Microsoft Excel Worksheet via Converter, MS Excel Worksheets
via DDE, and Excel Files via ODBC. I have tried all options, but none seems
to work. One problem might be that I can't do step 3; no matter how often I
select the merge field, or the entire document, and select language Hebrew,
the language remains English. I have tried changing my Excel column headings
back to Hebrew/Yiddish words with no effect other than to have the merge
field read "Autoformat" instead of an English heading.
If I select the "Show All" checkbox in the Confirm Data Source dialog,
I get many other options for all office programs, but none that says OLE db.
I have also set the Tools > options > general - set Confirm conversion on
open like you said in step 1, but it never seemed to actually open the
appropriate dialog unless I selected the "Select Method" checkbox in the Open
Data Source dialog.

Thanks,
Susan

 

[wcsdropout]

Hi Peter,
Thanks very much for the info. That would explain why my attempts at
trying Graham's suggestion did not work.
Unfortunately, I probably won't use the workaround because the purpose
of setting up an excel spreadsheet for my vocabulary lists was to allow the
flexibility of sorting, filtering, formatting, etc. inherent in Excel. If I
have to copy and paste lists into word, I might as well make my flashcards in
word in the first place by inserting tables on each page, instead of using
mail merge for mailing labels.

Thanks,
Susan

 

[Graham Mayor]

Unfortunately I didn't have Word 2000 available to check. With Word 2003 you
get the extra option and that does indeed work as I suggested - sorry

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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