Mail Merge problems using DDE in 2003

[SUSANVV]

We have a Word 2003 document and are using an Excel 2003 spreadsheet for the data in a mail merge. All the text cells merge correctly but the Percent cells do not. When we use DDE to do the merge the text fields do not merge as they should e.g. there are four column headings Index, First, Last and First_1. Where the First field is becomes populated with First_1. Where the Last field is becomes populated with Index. so far my only solution was to redo all the Percent cells as text and retype the percent. Also tried changing the switches in the merge fields and that doesn't work either. It appears to me that the arrangement of the columns plays a part. I am sure I will run into this again so any help on how to make it easier would be appreciated. thanks.

Sue

 

[Lilliabeth]

Wow, that is really odd. Have you tried troubleshooting by creating a new workbook and typing (not pasting) in a few sample rows to see if the problem persists with the different file?

--Lilliabeth

 

[SUSANVV]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I did do both a new document and new spreadsheet typed from scratch. Same result. The text cell headings are in this order:
Last First First_1 Street Address City State Zip

After using DDE In my merge document I do the obvious for the name First a space and then Last. I do the obvious for the address. I get the last name on the first line, then First_1 on the second line, I get no street address but a comma and then the city and state. The zip goes to the next line by itself. The percent numbers populate just fine. Thanks for any ideas on what is going wrong.

 

[macropod]

Hi Sue,

Make sure your data fields have no (double) quotes in them - that'll mess up the mailmerge's interpretation of what parts of the data belong to which fields.


Cheers
[MS MVP - Word]