Too Many Data Fields in Mail Merge
Hi Peter:
The data file always comes from the same source, but the data may be
different. The data comes from a process in PeopleSoft that generates the
file. We then save that file as a CSV file.
All of our letters use a CSV file as its data source. There are more fields
than ExCel likes that is why the CSV file.
Multiple users may merge the CSV files to letters, but all of the letters
and CSV files exist on a common shared drive.
One or two letters do prompt for the delimiter, and record separator.
Oddly, we did not experience this as a problem until about a month ago. We
are all on the same version of Word, but do have different machines.
Hope that helps.
Lynda
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
I can't think of any more really obvious possibilities, but...
Word always has to use its "text converter" connection method to open the
data source if it has more than 255 columns, and that's what pops up the
box asking for the two delimiter characters.
If we go back to your original question, do some of the merge documents
cause the delimiter prompts and others avoid it, even with exactly the
same data source? Or are they data sources with the same field names but
different data?
Do you use these merges on different machines, and if so, does each merge
behave the same way no matter which machine it's running on?
Peter Jamieson
"Lynda" wrote in message
...
Hi and thanks for attempting to solve this problem.
:
a. ask a few more questions and see if they lead anywhere useful
b. suggest a way to change the way Word gets the data. It might not fix
the problem, but it could shed some more light on what's happening.
Some more questions:
c. do you have any double quotes in your data (I mean, other than the
ones used to enclose your data fields) ?
No, the double quotes just enclose the data fields
d. do your data sources have small numbers of columns? Lots of columns?
A lot of variation? Any with over 255 columns? Or do you have very long
records in some data sources, i.e. in terms of the number of characters
in the line.
Our data source comes out of a Letter Generation tool in PeopleSoft
database and has a large number of fields.
e. are your data sources created in different ways or all in the same
way
They are all created exactly the same way. They are generated out of our
enterprise database via LetterGen.
(e.g. export from a database server) ?
We have more than 255 columns--perhaps that is the problem. If I had any
control out of the delivery of the CSV file, I would try to use some
other mechanism, but this is all built into the enterprise database.
Thanks for your help. I will keep looking for solutions
If you don't have any problems such as (c) and you have 255 columns or
fewer, you can try the approach described in the message at
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields/browse_thread/thread/dc1076d59b977c64/d39588c43fc31d70?lnk=st&q=jamieson+SCHEMA.INI+odc+ text+unicode&rnum=1#d39588c43fc31d70
If you can't find that, try searching Google Groups for
jamiesonSCHEMA.INI odc Unicode Peter Jamieson "Lynda"
wrote in
l... Hi Peter:
The CSV data file is comma-delimited with double-quotes. The data
file has first a header with the field names separated by acomma. The
actual data fields are enclosed in double quotes and each dataelement is
separated by a comma as well. In some cases, the Word does ask about
the field delimiter and recorddelimiter. This does not happen with all
of our mail merge letters --only acouple even though all letters are
constructed in the same way using thesame type of data source. We are
baffled why this is happening with some letters but not withothers.
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in
... Do
you have any data that contains commas (assuming that your CSV datareally
is comma-delimite rather than delimited by some other character)? Ifso,
is it enclosed in double-quotes? When you select the mail merge
data source, does Word ask you about thefield delimiter? Does it also ask
yu about the "record delimiter"? (Word hasa number of ways it can open a
CSV data source and I'm trying to establishwhich one it is using).
Peter Jamieson "Lynda" wrote in
. ..I am working in
Word 2003 mail merge and using a .csv data file as thedata source file.
The CSV file has the field headings as a header. Lately,every time I try
to merge from the .CSV data file to the merge letter, I getthe message
"Too Many Data Fields." I then have to click 'ok' to contunue.A few
letters will merge ok and then this message pops up again. Is theresome
setting that needs to be set for prevent this from occurring? Any
suggestions would be appreciated. Lynda
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