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#1
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The
mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual
fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the
'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
If you want to continue to use the mailing address field (what it is
actually called depends on whether you start the merge from Word or Outlook - but addressblock is something different again) then you are going to have to fix the data. Merge the field to a new document with either a directory merge or a label merge document type, which will reveal all the defective records, then edit those records. Even if you use the individual fields, you will probably still have the layout issue if the returns have not been inserted in the Outlook address field. It could be worse - I receive a newsletter which is a Word document consisting of one enormous paragraph formatted entirely with TABs to lay it out on the page. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the 'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
Graham
the problem is that I cannot see what is wrong with the data for the contacts which do not print properly. When I open the contact in Outlook, the address looks fine, with line breaks between all the various components (street address, city, postcode etc). If I then go to the 'All Fields' view, again I find everything looks just as it does for contacts that merge correctly. (As you know, in this case the 'Mailing Address' field is a display only field with commas separating components). If I could see what to fix, I would fix it! thanks "Graham Mayor" wrote: If you want to continue to use the mailing address field (what it is actually called depends on whether you start the merge from Word or Outlook - but addressblock is something different again) then you are going to have to fix the data. Merge the field to a new document with either a directory merge or a label merge document type, which will reveal all the defective records, then edit those records. Even if you use the individual fields, you will probably still have the layout issue if the returns have not been inserted in the Outlook address field. It could be worse - I receive a newsletter which is a Word document consisting of one enormous paragraph formatted entirely with TABs to lay it out on the page. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the 'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#6
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
Keith,
I don't know what is wrong either. But a. have you been maintaining your Outlook data for a long time (e.g. through various versions of Outlook? b. Have you been doing merges using contact data for a long time, and if so, have you encountered this problem before, with this version of Word and Outlook, or has it just started happening? If so, I wonder whether you can a. tell whether the problem only applies to addresses entered some time ago rather than recently b. try making a small change in one of the "rogue" addresses (preferably so that Outlook pops up its address check dialog box) c. see if that fixes the problem for that address. The reason I ask is simply because at least one Outlook version transition did have problems in this area and the only way to fix the data was to modify each problem address. The only other suggestion I can make is that you look at the data file that is generated by Outlook. It is a plain text file that you can open in Notepad, but rather confusingly Outlook gives it a .doc extension. I think if you opt to save the address data "permanently" in Outlook's "Mail Merge..." dialog box you will probably be able to avoid having to looking for the file in your temp folder. I would suggest that initially you just export the data for a single "rogue" contact entry. When you look at the file, which is a comma-delimited file with double-quote text delimiters, you should be able to identify the various addresses. Each of them should look something like ...."previous field","first line of address second line of address third line of address last line of address","next field",... The question is whether the "rogue" addresses also look like that. That assumes that you are initiating the merge from Outlook. However, I think you must be, because if you get the address data using the task pane option in Word, you don't actually get the complete "Mailing Address" as a single field. You get the Business, Home and Other addresses in that format, and all 4 addresses split up into separate fields, but that's it (AFAICR). Further, the "Address Indicator" that you might hope would tell you which of the Business, Home or Other addresses does not come through when you connect to address data from Word (which is when you could really do with it). It does come through when you initiate from Outlook (when you don't really need it), but as far as I know is always empty and is therefore useless. Peter Jamieson "KeithXP" wrote in message news Graham the problem is that I cannot see what is wrong with the data for the contacts which do not print properly. When I open the contact in Outlook, the address looks fine, with line breaks between all the various components (street address, city, postcode etc). If I then go to the 'All Fields' view, again I find everything looks just as it does for contacts that merge correctly. (As you know, in this case the 'Mailing Address' field is a display only field with commas separating components). If I could see what to fix, I would fix it! thanks "Graham Mayor" wrote: If you want to continue to use the mailing address field (what it is actually called depends on whether you start the merge from Word or Outlook - but addressblock is something different again) then you are going to have to fix the data. Merge the field to a new document with either a directory merge or a label merge document type, which will reveal all the defective records, then edit those records. Even if you use the individual fields, you will probably still have the layout issue if the returns have not been inserted in the Outlook address field. It could be worse - I receive a newsletter which is a Word document consisting of one enormous paragraph formatted entirely with TABs to lay it out on the page. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the 'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#7
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
The address has almost certainly been allowed to wrap naturally rather than
using a return. If the address doesn't print correctly, re-enter it. Click the button to the left of the address marked Business, Home etc and fill the address in the dialog box then save the address. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: Graham the problem is that I cannot see what is wrong with the data for the contacts which do not print properly. When I open the contact in Outlook, the address looks fine, with line breaks between all the various components (street address, city, postcode etc). If I then go to the 'All Fields' view, again I find everything looks just as it does for contacts that merge correctly. (As you know, in this case the 'Mailing Address' field is a display only field with commas separating components). If I could see what to fix, I would fix it! thanks "Graham Mayor" wrote: If you want to continue to use the mailing address field (what it is actually called depends on whether you start the merge from Word or Outlook - but addressblock is something different again) then you are going to have to fix the data. Merge the field to a new document with either a directory merge or a label merge document type, which will reveal all the defective records, then edit those records. Even if you use the individual fields, you will probably still have the layout issue if the returns have not been inserted in the Outlook address field. It could be worse - I receive a newsletter which is a Word document consisting of one enormous paragraph formatted entirely with TABs to lay it out on the page. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the 'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#8
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
It must be something to do with how the 'returns' are coded I suppose, but
the addresses are not being allowed to wrap as you suggest. In most cases the lines are only a word or two. For example an address might appear like this in the Outlook Contact 21 Streetname St London W1 0XX Like this in the Mailing_Address field: 21 Streetname St, London, W1 0XX But in the mailmerge comes out as 21 Streetname St London W1 0XX (and wraps wherever it hits the label margin) If I open the contact and hit the 'Business Address...' button, the address comes up with the entries in the correct fields of the address checker. Interestingly, if I do nothing but press OK and then Save the contact, it will format correctly. So at least I have a solution - I have to open every damn contact showing the problem (several hundred), use the address checker, save and close. Might be quicker to hand write the labels? "Graham Mayor" wrote: The address has almost certainly been allowed to wrap naturally rather than using a return. If the address doesn't print correctly, re-enter it. Click the button to the left of the address marked Business, Home etc and fill the address in the dialog box then save the address. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: Graham the problem is that I cannot see what is wrong with the data for the contacts which do not print properly. When I open the contact in Outlook, the address looks fine, with line breaks between all the various components (street address, city, postcode etc). If I then go to the 'All Fields' view, again I find everything looks just as it does for contacts that merge correctly. (As you know, in this case the 'Mailing Address' field is a display only field with commas separating components). If I could see what to fix, I would fix it! thanks "Graham Mayor" wrote: If you want to continue to use the mailing address field (what it is actually called depends on whether you start the merge from Word or Outlook - but addressblock is something different again) then you are going to have to fix the data. Merge the field to a new document with either a directory merge or a label merge document type, which will reveal all the defective records, then edit those records. Even if you use the individual fields, you will probably still have the layout issue if the returns have not been inserted in the Outlook address field. It could be worse - I receive a newsletter which is a Word document consisting of one enormous paragraph formatted entirely with TABs to lay it out on the page. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the 'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
#9
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Problem with Mailing_Address format
If this Outlook data file has been updated from Office 2000 to a more recent
version it is possible for such anomalies to creep in. You may have to bite the bullet and edit the addresses. You may like to try the following experiment. Backup your PST file somewhere safe. Export all the addresses to a file. Delete the addresses from the active file. Import the addresses from the file you have backed them up to. It *may* work and you still have the opriginal PST file if it doesn't. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: It must be something to do with how the 'returns' are coded I suppose, but the addresses are not being allowed to wrap as you suggest. In most cases the lines are only a word or two. For example an address might appear like this in the Outlook Contact 21 Streetname St London W1 0XX Like this in the Mailing_Address field: 21 Streetname St, London, W1 0XX But in the mailmerge comes out as 21 Streetname St London W1 0XX (and wraps wherever it hits the label margin) If I open the contact and hit the 'Business Address...' button, the address comes up with the entries in the correct fields of the address checker. Interestingly, if I do nothing but press OK and then Save the contact, it will format correctly. So at least I have a solution - I have to open every damn contact showing the problem (several hundred), use the address checker, save and close. Might be quicker to hand write the labels? "Graham Mayor" wrote: The address has almost certainly been allowed to wrap naturally rather than using a return. If the address doesn't print correctly, re-enter it. Click the button to the left of the address marked Business, Home etc and fill the address in the dialog box then save the address. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: Graham the problem is that I cannot see what is wrong with the data for the contacts which do not print properly. When I open the contact in Outlook, the address looks fine, with line breaks between all the various components (street address, city, postcode etc). If I then go to the 'All Fields' view, again I find everything looks just as it does for contacts that merge correctly. (As you know, in this case the 'Mailing Address' field is a display only field with commas separating components). If I could see what to fix, I would fix it! thanks "Graham Mayor" wrote: If you want to continue to use the mailing address field (what it is actually called depends on whether you start the merge from Word or Outlook - but addressblock is something different again) then you are going to have to fix the data. Merge the field to a new document with either a directory merge or a label merge document type, which will reveal all the defective records, then edit those records. Even if you use the individual fields, you will probably still have the layout issue if the returns have not been inserted in the Outlook address field. It could be worse - I receive a newsletter which is a Word document consisting of one enormous paragraph formatted entirely with TABs to lay it out on the page. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org KeithXP wrote: I am not using the 'Address Block' field in Word, I am using the 'Mailing_Address' field from Outlook (equivalent to the 'Postal_Address' field for U.S. users). I don't think these two fields are the same. As I mentioned, for some contacts we are selecting Home Address and for some it is Business Address fields. If we did not use the Mailing_Address field, the merge would be much more complex as it would need to include a switch based on the value of the Address Selector field. thanks Keith "Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote: Do not use the "Address Block" mergefield. Just insert the individual fields in the configuration that you want them. Also see the "Mailmerge from Outlook" item on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's website at: http://www.gmayor.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "KeithXP" wrote in message ... I am merging Outlook 2003 contact data to address labels in Word 2003. The mailing address for the contacts may be either 'Business Address' or 'Home Address' and so I am using the 'Mailing Address' field. My problem is that on some labels the address is formatted correctly (UK style!), with the street address, city, postcode, county & country each on a separate line while on others the information is strung togther with just a space between each. I have examined the individual fields in Outlook (Show All Fields) but cannot see any difference between those that format correctly and those which don't. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to get around it? thanks |
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