Actually I should have asked you that very question much earlier as it had
occurred to me, but when you mentioned you were using | as a field delimiter
I'd made the assumption that you'd have mentioned it if your record
deleimiter was also unusual. Maybe you did mention it.

Assumptions always catch you out - I should know better really as I've been
doing this for long enough :-)

Anyway, glad it all works now!

Peter Jamieson

"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
Thanks SO MUCH for your help, Peter. Your suggestions solved my problem
completely! So simple, yet so elusive... You're the best!

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Light dawns, a bit...

I would try vbCrLf instead of vbLf.

Certainly if Word is opening a delimited file using ODBC, it must have a
CrLf type record separator - the same may be true of OLEDB files.

Peter Jamieson

"zSplash" wrote in message
...
Hej, Peter, thanks for all your help. I believe if I replace the "~"
throughout the file, I can get it to work, but I don't know how to
replace
a
"~" with a CarrierReturn. Here's what I try, and I don't get a CR, but
a
box.
Sub test()
Dim fso As Object, theFile As Object, theText As String
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set theFile = fso.opentextfile("c:\datasource1.dat", 1)
theText = theFile.readall
theFile.Close
theText = Replace(theText, "~", vbLf)
Set theFile = fso.opentextfile("c:\crth6005.dat", 2)
theFile.write (theText)
theFile.Close
End Sub

If you can tell me how to replace the ~ with a CR, I'll try that before
bothering you with the datasource. I've tried it manually, and it
seems
to
do the trick.

TIA.

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, if Word doesn't recognise the record/field structure
properly, there's not a lot you can do. There are Windows functions
that
guess the encoding of a file and they work using a number of rules
which
may
not always give the right answer. You could try the suggestion I
posted
elsewhere

If the data source is not confidential, I'd be happy to have a look at
it
here and see if I can spot anything. Otherwise, what to do depends on
whether the data has to be in this format in the first place, and if
not,
what the best alternative is - if for example there are no more than
63
columns you could consider using Word, but there are other
possibilities.

One other thing may be worth trying: if you check Word
Tools|Options|general|Confirm conversion at open then just try to open
your
deleimited file in Word, what type of file does it think it is? Does
Word
think it is an encoded text file, and if so, what does it think the
encoding
is?

Peter Jamieson


"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
Thanks, Peter, for your help.

Yes, I am using a delimited text file as the datasource. Excel is
not
involved. As I said, the mail merge works great on individual
records,
but
once I put two records in the datasource, I get the error.

By "first page", I meant the document containing the data for the
first
record. (With this error, subsequent documents are never
generated.)

The only thing "unusual" is that I have opened the datasource file
before
the merge and replaced any " character in the datasource file with
`,
and
then saved the file.

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi st,

I'm running out of steam a bit here, so can probaby only reply
properly
2morrow, but can you bie a bit more specific about the format and
content
of
the data source? What do you mean by the "First page" etc.? I had
the
impression from your earlier message that you were using a
delimited
text
file as the data source, but now it sounds more like a Word
document
or
Excel file.

"Automerge" fields generally indicate that Word could not find a
heading
for
a column that contains data, e.g. if you have an Excel sheet with
colum
heading in row 1 for columns 1 to 9, but data in column 10 with no
heading
in that column, you might get an Automerge field - if you're using
an
Excel
file, make sure there is a heading for each column that has not
been
"cleared" in the excel sheet.

best I can do for now,

Peter Jamieson

"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
Thanks, Peter for the help and suggestions.

Well, the only thing that looks unusual from running your sub is
an
AutoMerge field, which I can't find in the doc.
Anyway, since the first page works great, I just cut everything
but
the
first page out of the dataSource, and then copied the first page
a
second
time. Should have generated 2 documents. Got the same error
message,
and
only one document generated.

Any other hope?

st.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in
message
...
...
However, that doesn't really help, so:
a. how many columns do you expect Word to find in the data
source?
Is
it
60, 277, or something else?
b. If you execute the following VBA code and look at the
results
in
the
VBE
Immediate window, does that give you any clues about what is
happening?

Sub showds()
Dim objDataField As MailMergeDataField
For Each objDataField In
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.DataSource.DataFields
Debug.Print objDataField.Name, objDataField.Value
Next
End Sub

Peter Jamieson
"zSplash" zNOSPAMSplash@ gci.net wrote in message
...
When I run my mail merge for a single record, I get no errors.
When
I
run
the mail merge with more than one record, I get a "Record
contained
too
many
data fields" error.

Others' help with this question suggested "usually caused by a
mismatch
between the number of fields listed in the header record of
the
data
source
and the number of fields Word finds in the data records." I
have
tried
to
compare these two, but evidently they're REALLY different,
unless
I'm
misinterprinting the following:
MsgBox ActiveDocument.MailMerge.Fields.Count = 60
MsgBox
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.DataSource.DataFields.Cou nt
=
277

My delimiter is "|", and I don't believe it's anywhere it
shouldn't
be.
As
I've said, individual records work great, but multiple records
give
me
this
error, and generate only one document.

Any suggestions as to how to solve this problem?

TIA