[CottonRLS]

I've been aware that Excel stores full values, not displayed values since the
beginning. My only problem with it is if Word imports a cell's information
that is formatted for Currency, why is there no simple radio button to click
or box to check to preserve the formatting from source to destination?

For example, I had to get the formatting codes (\# "$ #,##0.00;($
#,##0.00)") from another user from a forum such as this since the only ones
listed in Word's dialog box to edit field codes were the following:

\b
\m
\f
\v

This seems to be a very incomplete list and I see no mention of the "\#"
switch anywhere in Help. Even a search of Help for "\#" yields no results.
Merging a letter with currency amount fields must happen very frequently.
Surely there could be a simple switch added to the list to deal with this one
thing...or a checkbox...or something similar.

Sure, I could edit every cell formula to use the RND function, but doesn't
that make using the spreadsheet more complex than it needs to be? Why even
bother to develop a cell format capability to display as Currency if any
other use of the information can't take advantage of it?

It has been at least a year since I last did this with Office 2003, but it
seems 2003 used a DDE connection to the *.xls file that preserved the
displayed format where Office 2007, by default, uses a "OLE DB Database file"
connection. Perhaps that's why I've never experienced this problem until
Office 2007.

Cotton

"macropod" wrote:

Hi CottonRLS,

If Word's mergefields are showing the values to 4 decimal places, that's because the values are *stored* that way in Excel. Had you
rounded/trimmed the values to the appropriate number of decimal places in Excel, you wouldn't be having this problem.

Whether the formatting differences between Word and Excel are a 'problem' depends on your perspective. A distinct advantage that
flows from Word working with the unformatted values is that you are then free to format them there as you like, without being
constrained to whatever number formats appear in the data source.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]


"CottonRLS" wrote in message ...
I used to do this in Office 2003 for years, but for the first time this year,
I have to create a merge document in Word to pull Currency values from an
Excel 2007 worksheet range. No matter what I do, Word imports the currency
numbers to 4 decimal places. No change in Sheet versus named range, field
name changes, formatting Excel data differently (0 versus 2 decimal places),
or any other change I can think of gives me properly formatted currency
numbers.

I know there are merge codes to deal with this, but why should I have to
know all of these arcane formatting codes when it should be able to b e
handled automatically?

Thanks in advance.

CottonRLS