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Word2000 Mail Merge Date Format

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slink9

slink9

Programmer
Dec 11, 2000
19
US
I have a mail merge with a VFP table and date field. If the date field is blank in the VFP table, I get 12/30/1899 displayed in the Word merged document. Is there a way to format the date so that it will not display if the data is empty?
 
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Hi, slink! Found a decent freebie, huh?

Data source is Excel spreadsheet or Word table? If Excel, is there a value at all in the cell or is it completely blank?

Meanwhile:
Try the query options.
Try the Word merge field If...Then statements.

Yes, there's ways around it, but I'm curious as to why it's happening in the first place.
techsupportgirl@home.com
Brainbench MVP for Microsoft Word
 
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I am wondering why it is happening, also. The data source is a Visual Foxpro6 table. I have a table with 140 fields (20 sets of 7) and a Word form set up to merge these fields. It may have only two sets of fields filled in, but I get 12/30/1899 displayed in the other 18. I opened the table (in VFP) and verified that these fields are blank but it still displays the odd date.
By the way, I have also posted this on EE and will give you the points there if you respond there. It was down for an hour when I was trying to find a reason for this problem.
 
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slink, who gives a *&^%$ about points?!

Are you the one I tried so hard to help with the other FoxPro thing? I know it was someone LIKE you--you know--another techie from somewhere. If it WAS you, then you know the problems we had trying to figure that one out. Have you tried exporting that info to a csv file or Excel file before merge? Is that feasible as a long-term fix?
techsupportgirl@home.com
Brainbench MVP for Microsoft Word
 
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That was me. I decided to accomplish the entire thing within VFP alone.
This is an easy thing to do and I will try to send it out as a CSV and change the source in the Word file to use it and see if that helps. Thanks.
 
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Access is a bit too slow for the volume that we have. The move that we are making eventually will be to SQL7.
 
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Problem solved, although it is a rather unnecessary (in my opinion) workaround. I copied that table to an Excel format and used that as the source. Now instead of 12/30/1899 in place of the empty date fields I get " - - " which works.
 
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Yep. I got in and left the question and now can't get back in. Oh well. Whenever I get in if someone has proposed to copy it out as Excel format then I will accept, otherwise I will delete it. Thanks again.
 
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I just got in without a problem. It has been deleted.
 
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