word 2003 mail merge filter problems

[sian]

Recently switched to word 2003/office xp. When mail merging in word, filters
sometimes work. At other times although the filter appears to bring up the
correct recipients in the box, when these are merged to a new document all
records are merged not just those filtered. When I go back to check the
filter it has added additional lines in - although these would not always
result in the document which is created. Problems seem particularly bad with
negative filters - "not blank", "not equal to". Have tried using access and
excel as data sources with same effect. Had no problems before office
upgrade.

Any ideas?

 

[max.rasbold-gabbard]

Wish I had an answer, as I've had the exact same problems using an ACT! 2005
datasource in a Word mail merge. I've found that it's the filters don't work

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?bWF4LnJhc2JvbGQtZ2FiYmFyZA==?=,

Wish I had an answer, as I've had the exact same problems using an ACT! 2005
datasource in a Word mail merge. I've found that it's the filters don't work
on True/False fields, though I think I managed to have it sort correctly
once.

Never used Act. But I know Word interprets "true/false" differently than it used
to. If you place such a field in a merge document, then preview the data, what
values does such a field show for true and false in the document? Chances are,
you have to set the filter to exactly that.

used to be, false was equivalent to 0. But they changed that, probably thinking
that "true/false" or "yes/no" is more intuitive <sigh>

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?c2lhbg==?=,

Recently switched to word 2003/office xp. When mail merging in word, filters
sometimes work. At other times although the filter appears to bring up the
correct recipients in the box, when these are merged to a new document all
records are merged not just those filtered. When I go back to check the
filter it has added additional lines in - although these would not always
result in the document which is created. Problems seem particularly bad with
negative filters - "not blank", "not equal to". Have tried using access and
excel as data sources with same effect. Had no problems before office
upgrade.

so, is it word 2003, or Office XP? these are mutually exclusive. If it's Word
2002, which service packs have you applied?

Which connection method are you using to connect to the data? Are you re-using
existing mail merge documents, already connected to a data source? Or are these
"filters" being set from scratch?

Please give an detailed example.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
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

 

[max.rasbold-gabbard]

Cindy:

Thanks for the response. I've tried doing True/False and Yes/No in the
recipient filters before, but it seems that, when doing that, Word just
rejects the filter and doesn't filter the recipients at all. However, based
on your response, I used 0/1 to filter the recipients and that worked
swimmingly. Many thanks again.

-Max

 

[sian]

Cindy
The disks used to install the programme are labelled Microsoft Office Xp
Pro, in the word programme that opens it describes itself as Microsoft word
2003 (11.6359.6360) SP1, part of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003.

I have created a new word document and used the mail merge toolbar to link
to a database created in access 2000 format (although I have tried with a
brand new dummy version created in access 2003 with the same results and also
an excel spreadsheet).

Typically my document would look something like this continued down the page:

«Childs_First» «Child_Last» «Roll» «Keyworker» «Next Record»
«Childs_First» «Child_Last» «Roll» «Keyworker» «Next Record» etc

I then click edit recipients on toolbar and go to advanced settings and
choose:
<<Closed>> is blank [This removes children who have already left]
And <<Group>> is equal to <<orange>>
And <<Roll>> is equal to pm [afternoon children only]
Sort by <<Child Last>>

This produces the correct list of children in the edit recipients box, who
can then be selected by ticking.

When I click merge to new document or merge to printer on the toolbar I then
end up with a list of lots of children on the database, but not those
specified. Going back to edit recipients list to check the filter I find an
additional an additional line between <<Closed>>… and “and <<Group>>…†which
says “or <<closed>> is blank†before carrying on with the rest of the query.

Using different filters it appears that everytime I put in a line which says
“is blank†or “is not equal to†I get additional lines being put in.
Sometimes it also adds additional sort criteria as well such as “sort by
postcodeâ€.

……and sometimes it works as it should!

Sorry so long but hard to explain – and very desperate for a solution!
Thanks