Word mail merge data loss

[Gibson]

MS Excel 2002 10.2614.2625 / MS Word 10.2627.2625 / WinXP Pro SP2

I'm cataloguing DVD's for my company and have a number of fields for each
DVD Pack. For example, one movie pack will have up to 10 individual titles
in it, each individual title requires it own set of fields (Title, copyright,
director, synopsis, etc..), and there may be 10 individual titles in one DVD
pack. The problem is that I loose data when I import the information into a
mail merge in Word. Let's say I have 10 titles on a page, the first 4 will
be fine, but after that the synopsis will get cut off after two lines. And
it's only the synopsis. All other fields through the next 6 DVDs are fine,
no information loss there, it seems to specifically have a problem with long
text fields, as if there is a word limit or something (even though they seem
to be cutting off at different areas.

I've checked the data source workbook and the entire text is there, but for
some reason it's not being pulled by word. When I am in the mail merge
Wizard and it asks me to select the recepient list, that is were I'm
importing the data from my workbook, since I don't actually have any
recipients. When the box comes up for me to check which one's I want I'll
look though the information and THAT is where I notice that all synopsis
after title 4, are cut off. Three of us have been trying to figure this out
since Friday morning and we're about to take a hostage. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?R2lic29u?=,

MS Excel 2002 10.2614.2625 / MS Word 10.2627.2625 / WinXP Pro SP2

Older versions of Excel only allowed 255 characters or so / cell, so Word's mail
merge (which is also very old) sort of expects this to be the maximum. I imagine
this is the problem you're running into.

When you connect to the Excel workbook, are you selecting a connection method
(DDE, ODBC, OLE DB) or just letting Word use its default?

Have you tried actually executing the merge to a new document (as a test) to see
if the data comes across during the merge, even if it doesn't display in the
Recipients dialog box?

Would you have Access available, by any chance?

I'm cataloguing DVD's for my company and have a number of fields for each
DVD Pack. For example, one movie pack will have up to 10 individual titles
in it, each individual title requires it own set of fields (Title, copyright,
director, synopsis, etc..), and there may be 10 individual titles in one DVD
pack. The problem is that I loose data when I import the information into a
mail merge in Word. Let's say I have 10 titles on a page, the first 4 will
be fine, but after that the synopsis will get cut off after two lines. And
it's only the synopsis. All other fields through the next 6 DVDs are fine,
no information loss there, it seems to specifically have a problem with long
text fields, as if there is a word limit or something (even though they seem
to be cutting off at different areas.

I've checked the data source workbook and the entire text is there, but for
some reason it's not being pulled by word. When I am in the mail merge
Wizard and it asks me to select the recepient list, that is were I'm
importing the data from my workbook, since I don't actually have any
recipients. When the box comes up for me to check which one's I want I'll
look though the information and THAT is where I notice that all synopsis
after title 4, are cut off. Three of us have been trying to figure this out
since Friday morning and we're about to take a hostage. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.

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

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