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Word 2007/Excell 2007 - random loss of field contents on mailmerge
I am using Windows XP SP3 and MS Small Business Exchange Server 2003.
My office recently upgraded to Office 2007 from Office 2000. My issue regards mailmerge in Word 2007 using Excel 2007 as datasource/OLEDB. I would prefer to use DDE, but that option did not work well for us. We currently use many Word docs that have the following merge field code and formatting: {MERGEFIELD InjuryDate\@"M/d/yyyy"}{MERGEFIELD Injury_Date_Text} The corresponding fields in Excel database contain date only, text and date combined or can be completely blank. If one or the other field is empty and one has data, I want the field with data to insert that data in the Word doc. If both fields have data I want both fields to insert that data in Word doc next to each other. If both fields are blank then Word doc should be blank. I do not want zero to insert for any blank fields. Examples of data in those separate fields are as follows: Injury Date field: 6-12-09 8/15/08 Injury_Date_Text: Series And/or 8/16/03 Every day thereafter until 3/2/2007 Series beginning 10/01 each and every working day thereafter My problem: Our merging process was working fine with contents of the above fields inserting properly into all of our Word docs. However, after a couple of days various issues began to arise when merging. If the Injury Date field is blank a zero would print. Sometimes the Injury Date Text field would not insert its contents into the Word doc. Sometimes, the fields would insert the contents properly, but it was all random. After reading several posts on this Discussion Group reformatted all columns containing Date and/or Text contents via the Data/Text to Columns suggestion. As an aside, we have several numerical and date columns in the datasource worksheet. All were randomly working or not working. I reformatted my word mergefields using Mr. Mayors link to formatting merge fields in Word information. Still we are experiencing problems. I realize my formatting above does not deal with the zero issue. I would like help with that. But, what I do not understand is why Word randomly chooses to input contents of fields or not. Please help. Many people access these documents and I need to be secure in the fact that al the information contained in our database for each individual records are inserting into our word docs when we merge. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. -- John R. |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Word 2007/Excell 2007 - random loss of field contents on mailmerge
But, what I do not understand is
why Word randomly chooses to input contents of fields or not. There is an "explanation" of most of this behaviour at http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0003.htm. It doesn't go into the question of "why" in the sense of why Microsoft has never fixed this stuff because I don't know and can only speculate. I guess you may already have read that as you have mentioned one or two techniques described in there. The problem is "what to do about it". If DDE doesn't work for you, the options are limited. Have you found that it simply no longer works reliably in Office 2007, or are you trying to use Workbook techniques that will not work with it, e.g. multi-sheet workbooks? If you are using 2007 .xlsx format files, it's possible that reverting to .xls will help. Failing that... a. It may be worth trying some of the other techniques described in the web page I have referenced, but they mostly involve having more control over the content of the workbook than most people are likely to have (e.g., ensuring that the top eight rows have dummy data in them to ensure that Word "sees" the data in a more useful way. b. Personally, for precisely these reasons, I would always prefer to keep data in a data source that I could rely on (e.g. one of the free versions of SQL Server) but I know that (1) that would be a big change, (2) you would still probably want to use Excel and (3) Excel really only does read-only communication with databases c. Some other possibilities, all of which would involve some programming in either VBA or perhaps a .NET language. I don't currently have code for any of them though: - programmatically copy/paste the data into a Word document, and use that as the data source for the merge. That is more likely to work well if the number of columns is smaller than the maximum number of columns in Word, because then the data should paste as a table and potential problems with double-quotes in the data should go away. I don't have code for that right now. - automate Excel to put the data somewhere else, row by row. For example it would not be too hard to put it in an Access/Jet/ACE database .. Then use that as the data source. - instead of using Mailmerge to put data in the document, automate the document to get data from Excel and insert it. NB, the "modern", Office 2007 way to do that involves Content Controls and a thing called the XML data store. FWIW, I do not really understand why Microsoft has chosen a design which takes a common wordprocessing function out of the hands of the users and forces them to rely on programmers - it's almost a reversal of why they were successful inthe marketplace in the first place. "Commerce" may be the reason but it's a very poor one from the users' perspective. Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk John wrote: I am using Windows XP SP3 and MS Small Business Exchange Server 2003. My office recently upgraded to Office 2007 from Office 2000. My issue regards mailmerge in Word 2007 using Excel 2007 as datasource/OLEDB. I would prefer to use DDE, but that option did not work well for us. We currently use many Word docs that have the following merge field code and formatting: {MERGEFIELD InjuryDate\@"M/d/yyyy"}{MERGEFIELD Injury_Date_Text} The corresponding fields in Excel database contain date only, text and date combined or can be completely blank. If one or the other field is empty and one has data, I want the field with data to insert that data in the Word doc. If both fields have data I want both fields to insert that data in Word doc next to each other. If both fields are blank then Word doc should be blank. I do not want zero to insert for any blank fields. Examples of data in those separate fields are as follows: Injury Date field: 6-12-09 8/15/08 Injury_Date_Text: Series And/or 8/16/03 Every day thereafter until 3/2/2007 Series beginning 10/01 each and every working day thereafter My problem: Our merging process was working fine with contents of the above fields inserting properly into all of our Word docs. However, after a couple of days various issues began to arise when merging. If the Injury Date field is blank a zero would print. Sometimes the Injury Date Text field would not insert its contents into the Word doc. Sometimes, the fields would insert the contents properly, but it was all random. After reading several posts on this Discussion Group reformatted all columns containing Date and/or Text contents via the Data/Text to Columns suggestion. As an aside, we have several numerical and date columns in the datasource worksheet. All were randomly working or not working. I reformatted my word mergefields using Mr. Mayors link to formatting merge fields in Word information. Still we are experiencing problems. I realize my formatting above does not deal with the zero issue. I would like help with that. But, what I do not understand is why Word randomly chooses to input contents of fields or not. Please help. Many people access these documents and I need to be secure in the fact that al the information contained in our database for each individual records are inserting into our word docs when we merge. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Word 2007/Excell 2007 - random loss of field contents on mailm
Thank you for your help Peter. You rcomments are very useful.
I think, for now, I will try to put a few dummy rows in the database while I research and test what other methods I might want to change to for the future. I wonder if you could point me in the direction of "How to" sources regarding your last paragraph instead of using Mailmerge to put data in the document, automate the document to get data from Excel and insert it. NB, the "modern", Office 2007 way to do that involves Content Controls and a thing called the XML data store. I am unfamilar with the XML data store. I played briefly with Content Controls in Word 2000, but not yet had time in 2007. Any sources on this subject would be helpful. Knowledge base is practically useless and so far the books I have come across are basic info. I will read the link you posted and see what further info I can pick up from it. Again, thank you for spending so much time with my problem and offering so many choices to consider. John -- John R. "Peter Jamieson" wrote: But, what I do not understand is why Word randomly chooses to input contents of fields or not. There is an "explanation" of most of this behaviour at http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0003.htm. It doesn't go into the question of "why" in the sense of why Microsoft has never fixed this stuff because I don't know and can only speculate. I guess you may already have read that as you have mentioned one or two techniques described in there. The problem is "what to do about it". If DDE doesn't work for you, the options are limited. Have you found that it simply no longer works reliably in Office 2007, or are you trying to use Workbook techniques that will not work with it, e.g. multi-sheet workbooks? If you are using 2007 .xlsx format files, it's possible that reverting to .xls will help. Failing that... a. It may be worth trying some of the other techniques described in the web page I have referenced, but they mostly involve having more control over the content of the workbook than most people are likely to have (e.g., ensuring that the top eight rows have dummy data in them to ensure that Word "sees" the data in a more useful way. b. Personally, for precisely these reasons, I would always prefer to keep data in a data source that I could rely on (e.g. one of the free versions of SQL Server) but I know that (1) that would be a big change, (2) you would still probably want to use Excel and (3) Excel really only does read-only communication with databases c. Some other possibilities, all of which would involve some programming in either VBA or perhaps a .NET language. I don't currently have code for any of them though: - programmatically copy/paste the data into a Word document, and use that as the data source for the merge. That is more likely to work well if the number of columns is smaller than the maximum number of columns in Word, because then the data should paste as a table and potential problems with double-quotes in the data should go away. I don't have code for that right now. - automate Excel to put the data somewhere else, row by row. For example it would not be too hard to put it in an Access/Jet/ACE database .. Then use that as the data source. - instead of using Mailmerge to put data in the document, automate the document to get data from Excel and insert it. NB, the "modern", Office 2007 way to do that involves Content Controls and a thing called the XML data store. FWIW, I do not really understand why Microsoft has chosen a design which takes a common wordprocessing function out of the hands of the users and forces them to rely on programmers - it's almost a reversal of why they were successful inthe marketplace in the first place. "Commerce" may be the reason but it's a very poor one from the users' perspective. Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk John wrote: I am using Windows XP SP3 and MS Small Business Exchange Server 2003. My office recently upgraded to Office 2007 from Office 2000. My issue regards mailmerge in Word 2007 using Excel 2007 as datasource/OLEDB. I would prefer to use DDE, but that option did not work well for us. We currently use many Word docs that have the following merge field code and formatting: {MERGEFIELD InjuryDate\@"M/d/yyyy"}{MERGEFIELD Injury_Date_Text} The corresponding fields in Excel database contain date only, text and date combined or can be completely blank. If one or the other field is empty and one has data, I want the field with data to insert that data in the Word doc. If both fields have data I want both fields to insert that data in Word doc next to each other. If both fields are blank then Word doc should be blank. I do not want zero to insert for any blank fields. Examples of data in those separate fields are as follows: Injury Date field: 6-12-09 8/15/08 Injury_Date_Text: Series And/or 8/16/03 Every day thereafter until 3/2/2007 Series beginning 10/01 each and every working day thereafter My problem: Our merging process was working fine with contents of the above fields inserting properly into all of our Word docs. However, after a couple of days various issues began to arise when merging. If the Injury Date field is blank a zero would print. Sometimes the Injury Date Text field would not insert its contents into the Word doc. Sometimes, the fields would insert the contents properly, but it was all random. After reading several posts on this Discussion Group reformatted all columns containing Date and/or Text contents via the Data/Text to Columns suggestion. As an aside, we have several numerical and date columns in the datasource worksheet. All were randomly working or not working. I reformatted my word mergefields using Mr. Mayors link to formatting merge fields in Word information. Still we are experiencing problems. I realize my formatting above does not deal with the zero issue. I would like help with that. But, what I do not understand is why Word randomly chooses to input contents of fields or not. Please help. Many people access these documents and I need to be secure in the fact that al the information contained in our database for each individual records are inserting into our word docs when we merge. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Word 2007/Excell 2007 - random loss of field contents on mailm
Content Controls are new in Word 2007, so I guess you may be thinking of an earlier technology in Word 2000 - perhaps forms controls etc. For content controls etc. there are various places you could start, e.g. for "doing what mailmerge does" you could try http://blogs.msdn.com/erikaehrli/arc...tionPart1.aspx or you could go to http://msdn.microsoft.com and search for either word content controls or word content controls mailmerge and see what turns up. Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk John wrote: Thank you for your help Peter. You rcomments are very useful. I think, for now, I will try to put a few dummy rows in the database while I research and test what other methods I might want to change to for the future. I wonder if you could point me in the direction of "How to" sources regarding your last paragraph instead of using Mailmerge to put data in the document, automate the document to get data from Excel and insert it. NB, the "modern", Office 2007 way to do that involves Content Controls and a thing called the XML data store. I am unfamilar with the XML data store. I played briefly with Content Controls in Word 2000, but not yet had time in 2007. Any sources on this subject would be helpful. Knowledge base is practically useless and so far the books I have come across are basic info. I will read the link you posted and see what further info I can pick up from it. Again, thank you for spending so much time with my problem and offering so many choices to consider. John |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Word 2007/Excell 2007 - random loss of field contents on mailm
Thank you Peter. Once again you have been very helpful.
-- John R. "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Content Controls are new in Word 2007, so I guess you may be thinking of an earlier technology in Word 2000 - perhaps forms controls etc. For content controls etc. there are various places you could start, e.g. for "doing what mailmerge does" you could try http://blogs.msdn.com/erikaehrli/arc...tionPart1.aspx or you could go to http://msdn.microsoft.com and search for either word content controls or word content controls mailmerge and see what turns up. Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk John wrote: Thank you for your help Peter. You rcomments are very useful. I think, for now, I will try to put a few dummy rows in the database while I research and test what other methods I might want to change to for the future. I wonder if you could point me in the direction of "How to" sources regarding your last paragraph instead of using Mailmerge to put data in the document, automate the document to get data from Excel and insert it. NB, the "modern", Office 2007 way to do that involves Content Controls and a thing called the XML data store. I am unfamilar with the XML data store. I played briefly with Content Controls in Word 2000, but not yet had time in 2007. Any sources on this subject would be helpful. Knowledge base is practically useless and so far the books I have come across are basic info. I will read the link you posted and see what further info I can pick up from it. Again, thank you for spending so much time with my problem and offering so many choices to consider. John |
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