[uriahheep]

I have a mail merge where the datasource has leading spaces. I wish to keep
these but word 2003 is ignoring them. Is there a way to keep these and use
them in the mail merge.

[Peter Jamieson]

Is there a way to keep these and use
them in the mail merge.

It depends on the data source and how you connect to it.

However, I think the only type of data source that is likely to save leading
spaces is a table in a word document, and in order to use that you would
probably have to find a way to create that table without losing the spaces
anyway.

For Excel sheet data sources, the only connection method that preserves
leading blanks is the old Excel converter (which you can download from
somewhere on Graham Mayor's site at http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm I
think). However, that has other limitations.

What is the data source?

Peter Jamieson

"uriahheep" wrote in message
...
I have a mail merge where the datasource has leading spaces. I wish to keep
these but word 2003 is ignoring them. Is there a way to keep these and use
them in the mail merge.

[uriahheep]

I am using a .txt file that is created by third party software although it is
..txt it is separated by commas.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Is there a way to keep these and use
them in the mail merge.

It depends on the data source and how you connect to it.

However, I think the only type of data source that is likely to save leading
spaces is a table in a word document, and in order to use that you would
probably have to find a way to create that table without losing the spaces
anyway.

For Excel sheet data sources, the only connection method that preserves
leading blanks is the old Excel converter (which you can download from
somewhere on Graham Mayor's site at http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm I
think). However, that has other limitations.

What is the data source?

Peter Jamieson

"uriahheep" wrote in message
...
I have a mail merge where the datasource has leading spaces. I wish to keep
these but word 2003 is ignoring them. Is there a way to keep these and use
them in the mail merge.

[Peter Jamieson]

I am pretty sure that none of the connection methods available to Word will
preserve the leading blanks (although at least one method retain trailing
blanks).

As long as you have 63 fields (columns) or fewer in your text file, I would
try the following:
a. open the text file in Word (if necessary, check Word
Tools|Options|General|"confirm conversion at open" before doing so, and
select the file type and encoding you need).
b. select the column headers and text
c. use Table|"Convert text to table" to convert the data into a Word table
d. save the resulting document as a .doc
e. use that as the data source.

If necessary, you could do that using a Word macro, but I leave you to do
that if you need it.

Peter Jamieson


"uriahheep" wrote in message
...
I am using a .txt file that is created by third party software although it
is
.txt it is separated by commas.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Is there a way to keep these and use
them in the mail merge.

It depends on the data source and how you connect to it.

However, I think the only type of data source that is likely to save
leading
spaces is a table in a word document, and in order to use that you would
probably have to find a way to create that table without losing the
spaces
anyway.

For Excel sheet data sources, the only connection method that preserves
leading blanks is the old Excel converter (which you can download from
somewhere on Graham Mayor's site at http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm I
think). However, that has other limitations.

What is the data source?

Peter Jamieson

"uriahheep" wrote in message
...
I have a mail merge where the datasource has leading spaces. I wish to
keep
these but word 2003 is ignoring them. Is there a way to keep these and
use
them in the mail merge.