Hej, Peter, thanks for all your help. I believe if I replace the "~"
throughout the file, I can get it to work, but I don't know how to replace a
"~" with a CarrierReturn. Here's what I try, and I don't get a CR, but a
box.
Sub test()
Dim fso As Object, theFile As Object, theText As String
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set theFile = fso.opentextfile("c:\datasource1.dat", 1)
theText = theFile.readall
theFile.Close
theText = Replace(theText, "~", vbLf)
Set theFile = fso.opentextfile("c:\crth6005.dat", 2)
theFile.write (theText)
theFile.Close
End Sub

If you can tell me how to replace the ~ with a CR, I'll try that before
bothering you with the datasource. I've tried it manually, and it seems to
do the trick.

TIA.

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, if Word doesn't recognise the record/field structure
properly, there's not a lot you can do. There are Windows functions that
guess the encoding of a file and they work using a number of rules which
may
not always give the right answer. You could try the suggestion I posted
elsewhere

If the data source is not confidential, I'd be happy to have a look at it
here and see if I can spot anything. Otherwise, what to do depends on
whether the data has to be in this format in the first place, and if not,
what the best alternative is - if for example there are no more than 63
columns you could consider using Word, but there are other possibilities.

One other thing may be worth trying: if you check Word
Tools|Options|general|Confirm conversion at open then just try to open
your
deleimited file in Word, what type of file does it think it is? Does Word
think it is an encoded text file, and if so, what does it think the
encoding
is?

Peter Jamieson


"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
Thanks, Peter, for your help.

Yes, I am using a delimited text file as the datasource. Excel is not
involved. As I said, the mail merge works great on individual records,
but
once I put two records in the datasource, I get the error.

By "first page", I meant the document containing the data for the first
record. (With this error, subsequent documents are never generated.)

The only thing "unusual" is that I have opened the datasource file
before
the merge and replaced any " character in the datasource file with `,
and
then saved the file.

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi st,

I'm running out of steam a bit here, so can probaby only reply properly
2morrow, but can you bie a bit more specific about the format and
content
of
the data source? What do you mean by the "First page" etc.? I had the
impression from your earlier message that you were using a delimited
text
file as the data source, but now it sounds more like a Word document or
Excel file.

"Automerge" fields generally indicate that Word could not find a
heading
for
a column that contains data, e.g. if you have an Excel sheet with colum
heading in row 1 for columns 1 to 9, but data in column 10 with no
heading
in that column, you might get an Automerge field - if you're using an
Excel
file, make sure there is a heading for each column that has not been
"cleared" in the excel sheet.

best I can do for now,

Peter Jamieson

"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
Thanks, Peter for the help and suggestions.

Well, the only thing that looks unusual from running your sub is an
AutoMerge field, which I can't find in the doc.
Anyway, since the first page works great, I just cut everything but
the
first page out of the dataSource, and then copied the first page a
second
time. Should have generated 2 documents. Got the same error
message,
and
only one document generated.

Any other hope?

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
...
However, that doesn't really help, so:
a. how many columns do you expect Word to find in the data source?
Is
it
60, 277, or something else?
b. If you execute the following VBA code and look at the results in
the
VBE
Immediate window, does that give you any clues about what is
happening?

Sub showds()
Dim objDataField As MailMergeDataField
For Each objDataField In
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.DataSource.DataFields
Debug.Print objDataField.Name, objDataField.Value
Next
End Sub

Peter Jamieson
"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
When I run my mail merge for a single record, I get no errors.
When
I
run
the mail merge with more than one record, I get a "Record
contained
too
many
data fields" error.

Others' help with this question suggested "usually caused by a
mismatch
between the number of fields listed in the header record of the
data
source
and the number of fields Word finds in the data records." I have
tried
to
compare these two, but evidently they're REALLY different, unless
I'm
misinterprinting the following:
MsgBox ActiveDocument.MailMerge.Fields.Count = 60
MsgBox ActiveDocument.MailMerge.DataSource.DataFields.Cou nt
=
277

My delimiter is "|", and I don't believe it's anywhere it
shouldn't
be.
As
I've said, individual records work great, but multiple records
give
me
this
error, and generate only one document.

Any suggestions as to how to solve this problem?

TIA