Problem with merging from excel to word....

[Rhianne]

I have a personnel spreadsheet that requires to be merged with people's
contracts, to do manually would take forever so have begun to merge the
documents which has been really quick.

This has worked fine for name, address etc and then I decided to merge job
titles as none of these will be generic and would be easier in long run to do
so.

I have exactly the same spreadsheet for each break down of employees and
exactly the same contracts in terms of layout etc. I have successfully
managed to merge two spreadsheets worth of information back into the
documents, but for some reason I cannot do this anymore. WHY???

I have tried to fitting the spreadsheet to one page, still doesn't work.
I've tried renaming the column, doesn't work. I cannot think what could be
stopping it, but each time I try "Job Title" does not appear in the list of
fields, even though it is in a column in excel like the others - and plus was
just working!!!!

Could the problem be where I have too many records? That is the only thing I
can think of, most of them are blank (again I do not know how that
happened...but that isn't a huge worry at the moment).

Where am I going wrong????????????????

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Which version of Word/Excel?

Does the column appear in the Mail merge Recipients/Edit recipients dialog
box? Are any other columns missing?

Have you tried going through the process of connecting to the worksheet
again (disconnect first)? I expect you have, but just in case...

 

[Rhianne]

Both 2003.

I haven't used recipients dialog box - should i give this a go? what bemuses
me is that it was working fine and then poof! It won't complete the task.

 

[Rhianne]

I have tried rearranging the columns but it still doesn't want to work - all
the other columns are there, nothing else is missing.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I haven't used recipients dialog box - should i give this a go?

I'm not suggesting it as a normal working practice, only as another way to
see what Word "thinks" is in your sheet.

me is that it was working fine and then poof! It won't complete the task.

Yes, that is definitely the mystery factor in this case.

A few other questions:
a. Are the column headings in your Excel file simply texts in row 1 of the
sheet?
b. are there any empty columns (perhaps hidden ones) within the sheet?
c. when you connect to the sheet from Word,
- are you seeing the Confirm dialog box (which may appear after you have
selected the sheet, and asks what "connection method" you want to use (DDE,
ODBC, OLE DB etc.) ?
- if so, which option are you choosing (e.g. are you using DDE
deliberately)?
- after that, do you see a dialog box titled Select Table, or a
different dialog box?

Can you use Alt-F9 in Word to diplay the field codes (which look like {
MERGEFIELD "Job Title" } ?

Do any of them have the "switch" \m in them, e.g.

{ MERGEFIELD "Job Title" \m }

If so, you have probably been inserting your merge fields with the "Address
fields" radio button seleted in the insertion dialog rather than the
"Database fields" button, and I would delete these fields, check the
Database fields button, then insert the fields you need.

("Address fields" just contains a standard list of field names that Word
tries to match with field names in your data source. It may or may not match
Job Title automatically. If it doesn't, and you have not matched it
manually, there will likely be problems. "Database fields" lists the fields
that are actually in your data source).

 

[Rhianne]

Fixed it!

I think there was a problem with data source, so I used another spreadsheet
with similar information and it worked a treat!

Thanks for your help though - I was wondering if you knew how I can get rid
of all unwanted records? There are hundreds of blank records that I want to
delete, but do not know how. I know that when I merge to the printer etc I
should be able to edit the range, but how do I go about editing documents (if
I want) before printing.

Plus can I save individual documents? Do I need to merge them with printer
or something before I can do this? It has been a long time since I have mail
merged using microsoft and that was using access and creating letters, so
little different and I remember it being a lot easier!!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Thanks for your help though - I was wondering if you knew how I can get

rid
of all unwanted records? There are hundreds of blank records that I want
to
delete, but do not know how.

Are these records that just have some columns filled in Excel, but maybe the
columns you are merging are blank? Or what? It is possible to
include/exclude records using various criteria in the Mailmerge Recipients
dialog box, either using the dropdowns at the top of the columns or using
the Advanced... option on those dropdowns.

Plus can I save individual documents? Do I need to merge them with printer

Have a look at the stuff by Graham Mayor and Doug Robbins at
http://www.gmayor.com/individual_merge_letters.htm