I do not understand all this fields business in mailmerge but I do use
mailmerge a lot and I found the easiest thing to do is set up some extra
columns in my excel spreadsheet and convert to the item I have problems with
(dates, currency, alphanumerics etc.) to text and use the text columns in the
mailmerge.

"David Nelson" wrote:

Quite right. ALT+F9 made all the difference. I have to admit reading
directions is sometimes as difficult as asking for directions. While it is
probably already on your website, I am suffering from lazy bones, so let me
know if it explains how to format an alphanumeric field to be an
alphanumeric field (my "stock numbers" that are numeric work fine, those
preceded with a letter come across as "0").

A warm thanks in advance to you and Doug for your assistance. If ever in
Austin let me know and I buy you a beer or coffee (depending on time of
day).

"Graham Mayor" wrote in message
...
You skipped the important third paragraph when you took that information
from my web site

Toggle the field code (ALT+F9) to change LTST_PRICE to {Mergefield
LSTST_PRICE}
Inside the brackets, add the switch
Toggle back, then F9 to update.


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



David Nelson wrote:
I went to Graham Mayor's webpage and thought I followed the
instructions and here is what I got (I was trying to get the "List
Price" = LST_PRICE to show as a dollar amount). The first group are
my field names and coding. The second set of information is a sample
of the result. Obviously I something is "lost in translation." Most
likely something really simple.

{«LST_PRICE» Amount \# "$, 0.00 ;( $, 0.00)"}

«CARLINE»

«STOCK_NO»

«Pinstripes»

«Paint»

«Total»



{27315. Amount \# "$, 0.00 ;( $, 0.00)"}

ACCORD COUPE

5014.0

459.

250.

28024



"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
See "Formatting Word fields with switches" on fellow MVP Graham
Mayor's website at

http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm

Just saving the mailmerge main document as a document should suffice.
Then
just open it and execute the merge whenever it is required.


--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for
the benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions
forwarded directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting
basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"David Nelson" wrote in message
...
I am attempting to merge Excel fields into a Word Document using
mailmerge
(essentially filling in a form). For lack of a better document I am
using
"letter" merge (8.5"x11") as my "form" (e.g. a blank piece of
paper). I am experiencing two issues:

1. The numbers are losing their formating. One field I would like
to have
as currency with cents and another is a "Stock Number" that is
alphanumeric. The currency field comes across as a number with no
formating. The alphanumeric part is fine as long as it is numeric
only (if an "alpha" is in it the value returned is "0"). My field
values are reflected as STOCK_NO and LST_PRICE.

2. My second issue is that this process would be run several times a
week.
It appears the easiest way to make this repeatable is to create a
template
(*.dot) file that references the same Excel file and process it
with the updates...or am I missing something?

Thanks in Advance,

Dave