I believe that the advice concerning the use of a .csv file was more to do
with wanting to be able to use more than 255 fields which is the limit for
the number of columns or fields in Excel and Access respectively.

The way around the 255 character per field limit is the change the method of
connection to the data source to DDE. To do that, select Options from the
Tools menu in Word and go to the General tab and check the box against
"Confirm conversions at open" Then when you attach the data source to the
mail merge main document, select DDE as the method by which the connection
should be made.

--
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

"Pete" wrote in message
...
I have an excel sheet with some cell contents of about 500 characters

When I merge this in to word the fields are truncated at 255 characters

I understand that this is a throw back to previous limits, but why does it
happen?

I have looked at cell format etc etc
I am not using tables etc just merge fields in a simple word document


I have read previous threads in this group and using Doug Robbins idea
have
managed to make the merge work by saving the excel sheet as as a csv file
and
merging that. This may work but its inconvienent

Anyone have any ideas?


Many thanks

Pete