Suppress Blank Lines Office 2008

[cdbeshore]

Anybody figured out how to suppress blank lines during a mail merge in word 2008? I can't find the option anywhere other than the if...then...else placeholder, which doesn't help as far as I can tell.

 

[CyberTaz]

Suppressing blank lines is the default as long as the line is in fact blank.
If there is any literal content (such as punctuation, spaces, tabs) between
fields the line isn't *blank* even if the fields on that line contain no
data. If that's the case you can use MERGEFIELD with appropriate Switches
rather than IFs.

 

[cdbeshore]

Thanks for the reply. The data file I am using is an Office 2008 Excel file and the fields that aren't suppressing are completely blank (ie. some records have a company name, while some do not). Maybe there is something behind the scenes that I am missing, but it isn't automatically suppressing when I merge. In other versions of Office, I remember this being a setting.

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, let's try this... Assuming your address block in the Main doc (doesn't
matter whether it's a form letter, label or envelope) is set up something
like:

<<FirstName>> <<LastName>>
<<CompanyName>>
<<StreetAddress>>
<<City>>, <<State>> <<Zip>>

In your Main doc turn on the non-printing characters(¶) & look to see if
there are *any* characters on the company name line other than the field
code with a ¶ immediately following. If there is a dot, an arrow or any
other symbols or hidden text, that's what's causing the blank line to take
up space.

The setting you recall was removed many versions back when the default was
changed to supress rather than not (I can't remember for sure, but I believe
the last version to *not* suppress blank lines was v6.0).

One other possibilities I can think of are: a) If you have any paragraph
Spacing After applied to the para that contains the first/last names or
Spacing Before applied to the para that follows, or b) If the Company Name
cells in the Excel sheet actually have some kind of invisible content - I
drove myself bonkers once tying to figure out what was causing exactly the
same problem only to learn that the user who put the spreadsheet to gether
thought selecting a cell & pressing the spacebar was the way to *delete* the
content of the cell 8>\

 

[cdbeshore]

Ok, this is weird. First, I checked what you said and found no characters at all and the data file has no spaces either. So what I finally found that worked is this...
1. create the label document
2. when it is time to insert the placeholders, use a regular carriage return after each line (don't hold shift return)
3. When you click OK, your labels will, by default I guess, have 10 paragraph spacing after each paragraph. change this to 0 and it will bring back to single spacing and viola, blank lines are magically suppressed, both in preview and in output.

I think this might be a bug of some sort. If you do a "shift - return" when arranging the placeholders, it won't allow you to change the paragraph settings, which doesn't trigger the suppression of the blanks.

I hope this makes sense. Maybe it will help someone else out at some point.

 

[Leslie]

how can I change/remove a blank line in my default return address for an envelope in Word? I cannot seem to make the return address window 'active' so I can't delete a blank line between my street address and town. Somewhere this must be a default but I cannot find it! Thanks for help!

 

[CyberTaz]

Your default return address is in Word> Preferences> User Information - you
probably have an extra return in the big box strret address. Click directly
below the address & press the delete key.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac