Typically, neither of the methods Word uses to get mailmerge data in
Word 2000 (DDE and ODBC) return characters that are not either in the
ANSI (or Windows) character sets, or your system's base character set if
isn't ANSI (AFAIK this is what Microsoft sometimes refers to as the
OEM character set)
In Word 2002 and later you should get Unicode data if you are using an
OLE DB provider that handles Unicode correctly - Access/Jet and SQL
Server are at least reasonably OK on this front. But if your database
only has an ODBC driver, Unicode still may not get through. I've never
been able to work out whether that is a limitation of the specific ODBC
drivers I have or the way that Word uses them.
I think that in order to see these characters you might have to get your
source data in a separate step that uses a method that does work, into a
format (probably Word .doc format or .rtf format) that /will/ allow
Unicode data to reach Word. e.g. it may be possible if you write VBA to
get data via OLE DB, stuff it into a Word table and use that as a data
source. But I wouldn't be completely sure even about that without trying it.
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Jessica B. wrote:
I am having some issues with international characters in a merge field. My
database shows the characters correctly but when I hook my document up to the
database word changes the symbols. Are their any settings I may have wrong?
or does anyone have any suggestions to fix this?
I am using word 2000.