I think in this case the problem arises because of what happens when you
open the exported text file in Excel. Are you seeing an import dialog where
you have to specify the delimiter characters etc.?
If so, I do not think anything you specify in there will let you import the
file correctly, because it does not appear to know how to import standard
delimited text files.
However,
a. if you open the file in from Windows Explorer using Excel, Excel /does/
get it right - at least it does here when I save the file as a .txt file.
(You may have to select the program you want to use, and you probably should
not set up Excel as the default for .txt files).
b. you should be able to use the file exported from Windows Contacts
directly as a data source for a merge, without having to go via Excel.
Both of those routes will almost certainly fail if any of your data has
double quote characters in it, because Windows Contacts (like Outlook
Express before it, AFAIK), does not take account of the standard rules for
formatting delimited text files.
There is another way to approach this, but it requires some code which I'll
have to think about.
--
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
"JohnMike" wrote in message
news
Dear All,
I want to complete a mail merge in word to print out address labels. The
addressing data has been entered via windows contacts on a vista pc.
Following the prescribed method I have exported the contacts to a CSV
file.
Imported that to an Excel Sheet and completed the usual merge processes.
The problem lies with addresses containing 2 or more lines with in the
Windows Contacts.
These get exported in the following format name,"address line1 address
line2",state etc etc
When imported into the Excel sheet we then get
r1 name address line1
r2 address line2
Which obviously then fails to merge correctly.
I have manually edited the CSV and the Excel files to compensate for this
and get a successful merge. But this seems like hard work. Surely other
users
have multi line addresses and want to use this data in word.
Please can some one advise.
--
JohnMike