Words Mail Merge Inconsistencies

[bkclaw113]

I have recently run accross an issue with a Microsoft Word mail merge that I have not been able to explain.

My data source is in Excel format and looks like the following:
Addrss, City, State, Cstmr1, Cstmr2, ....., Cstmr15

Not all of the Customer fields contain data, some records may have only 2 customers other records may have up to 15. In the actuall word document that sets up the merge I have the address fields populating at the top of the letter followed by a body of text, then at the bottom a list of the Customers:

Address:
Body:
<Cstmr1>
<Cstmr2>
<Cstmr3>
...
<Cstmr15>

Closing:

The desired effect was to have a list of Customers placed in the letter. Blank lines were suppress to avoid having extra white space in the middle of the letter. The total number of records to be merged was approximately 1250.

What happened is in 26 letters recieved the correct customer names then the very last name for the very last record was also appended onto the letters. This name does not appear on any of the 26 records but still made it into the final merged document.

I have checked and rechecked the data source as well as the merge document and cannot find anything that would cause this to happen. If you have any suggestions about what may have happened, or how to avoid something like this happening in the future it would be very helpful.

 

[Rythemton]

If you are in Word 2000 or Word 97, try changing the method you are importing the files. When it prompts you to select the data source, there is a check box for 'Select Method'. After you select your data source it will prompt you for the method you'd like to import the data with. Try via converter. The default in Word 2000 and 97 is DDE.

If you are using Word 2002, you can't change the method that easily, it always uses ODBC. Try saving the Excel file in some other type, such as an access file or comma seperated values(csv) file.

Steve