OK, you may be able to do this another way, but if you have an ODBC User or
System DSN called "Delimited Text Files" that uses the MS Text Driver, and
your file is called c:\myfiles\myitems.txt then you would need:
a. a plain text file called SCHEMA.INI (this is normally created in the
ODBC Admnistartor utility but you can create or edit it in Notepad) in
c:\myfiles with the following content (at least):

[myitems.txt]

ColNameHeader=True

Format=TabDelimited

MaxScanRows=25



(you might also need

CharacterSet=OEM

or

CharacterSet=ANSI

)



Run a macro such as the following to set up the data source (once you have
done this, the document should be connected to the data source for good, as
long as Word's security does not get in the way).


Sub OpenNoDuplicates()
' Disconnect from any existing source (you will lose sort sequence and
filters)
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.MainDocumentType = wdNotAMergeDocument
' Use whatever merge type you need instead of wdCatalog
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.MainDocumentType = wdCatalog
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.OpenDataSource _
Name:="", _
Connection:="DSN=Delimited Text
Files;DBQ=c:\myfiles;DefaultDir=c:\myfiles;DriverI d=27;FIL=text;", _
SQLStatement:="SELECT DISTINCT itemnumber,itemprice FROM myitems.txt", _
SubType:=wdMergeSubTypeWord2000
End Sub

Peter Jamieson

"Dan" wrote in message
...
Hi all-

Thanks Peter thats an interesting concept that I hadn't considered.

My data source is a flat text file - tab delimited.


Thanks for any advise..

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

In addition to Doug's reply, even if "altering the data source is not an
option" you may be able to open the data source using a query in a VBA
OpenDataSource statement in a way that eliminates the duplicates.
However,
it depends on what type of data source you have.

Peter Jamieson

"dan" wrote in message
. ..
Hello listers

I saw your code on the cindy meister website regarding suppressing
duplicates in a mail merge. I unfortaunately am not able to follow it
very
well.

I have a data source with a bunch of fields. I only need 2 of the
fields
in
my mail merge document. When I merge them to my template I get lots of
multiples when I really need only one of each.

I am making labels for pricing items and have the following data source
model

itemnumber itemprice itemdescription itemmodel
1234 24.95 item1yellow 2
1234 24.95 item1gree 3
1234 24.95 item1blue 4
1234 24.95 item1red 5
4321 32.95 item1yellow 1
4321 32.95 item1orange 1

etc

but when i run a mail merge to make the labels i only need the item
number
and the price since they are all the same. But running a normal mail
merge
gives me 5 labels for item 1234 and two labels for 4321 when i really
only
need two labels total as there are only two different item numbers.

If you could help me work through this or offer any code as to how to
accomplish this it would be greatly appreciated.

Altering the data source is not an option.

Thanks in advance!!!