Special Characters in Mail Merge

[GP]

Hi,

I have a datasouce file with special characters like Z
and z. When I try to merge this file with the MS Word
2000 template, Word is not able to recognize these two
characters and replaces them with (unknown character).

The ascii values of those two characters are 142 and 158
respectively. My datasource file is in ANSII encoding and
these characters are in the extended ascii list, hence
Word must support them right?
Further, if I manually paste these characters into the
Word doc, Word accepts them without any issues.

Kindly help!!!!

Awaiting response

GP

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Gp,

If you OPEN this text file in Word, then "save as" as a Word document and use that as the data source - does that work correctly?

Most likely, mail merge is not picking up the correct code page (this has been an increasingly critical problem since Word 2000 came out). I know of only one other way around it: defining and using an ODBC configuration expressly for older character sets. But which approach is best depends a lot on the situation and your preference...

I have a datasouce file with special characters like Z
and z. When I try to merge this file with the MS Word
2000 template, Word is not able to recognize these two
characters and replaces them with (unknown character).

The ascii values of those two characters are 142 and 158
respectively. My datasource file is in ANSII encoding and
these characters are in the extended ascii list, hence
Word must support them right?
Further, if I manually paste these characters into the
Word doc, Word accepts them without any issues.

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

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[GP]

Hi,

Saving the datasource file as a word doc did not help. Z
got converted to .

Thanks for that update
GP

-----Original Message-----
Hi Gp,

If you OPEN this text file in Word, then "save as" as a

Word document and use that as the data source - does that
work correctly?

Most likely, mail merge is not picking up the correct

code page (this has been an increasingly critical problem
since Word 2000 came out). I know of only one other way
around it: defining and using an ODBC configuration
expressly for older character sets. But which approach is
best depends a lot on the situation and your preference...

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

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any

follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-
mail

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Gp,

Saving the datasource file as a word doc did not help

That's very odd; that usually does work. The characters
appeared correctly when opened into Word, though? And you
did choose "Word document" from the File type list when
saving as a Word document? (Just typing .doc instead of
.txt won't do it)

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

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail