[Mike]

Hi Doug,

The DDE options worked. The formating was retained. Thanks for your tips.

I have another problem though. All the while, I've been testing the merge
documents stored in local hard drive. It works fine. However, when I tried to
merged documents located in folders stored in the server, as I clicked open
the Word document, it gave me an error that is can't locate the source data.

For your info, my source data is a ms query data in excel format. I then
tried stored the query file in my local harddrive while maintaining the Word
file in the server, it works. Does it means that my source data must always
be in the server or there is a way to get around it?

Thanks in advance.
Regards.
Mike

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Try setting the "Confirm file coversions at open" item under
ToolsOptionsGeneral and then when you attach the data source, use the DDE
option.

You may also need to format the cells in column that contains that data as
Text.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Mike" wrote in message
...
How do I keep the display result in Mail Merge to follow exactly the
format
set in the Excel file?

I cannot use the format switches due to the same field in the excel file
contains multiple format, ie. the same field contains data like date and
numbers, i need the display result in Word to show both dates and numbers.