[Andrew]

Hi,

I have extracted data from my progress database to a text file and want to
merge the data into word. Some of the database fields contain free text,
therefore users have naturally enough used characters such as quotation
marks, commas and carriage returns in these fields. I thought I could get
round this by using | as the field delimiter and ~ as the record delimiter
and, indeed this worked ok, producing fields with the offending characters
read faithfully as text. But now when I try to add more fields using the
same conventions and with characters such as ",CR when I attach the data
source in Word the dialog box where you specify the field and record
delimiters fails to display and the data merges as one glutinous lump!
Am I missing an obvious solution here? Myself and a colleague have checked
and can see no difference between the fields where the offending characters
work and the ones where they don't.
HELP!!!

[Peter Jamieson]

First, ensure that you have the same number of fields in each record. Also,
you might check that you are using the same | character when generating
output from your database as you are using to insert fields manually (there
are a couple, and although they usually appear differently, that isn't
necessarily the case).

Next, try checking Word Tools|Options|General|Confirm conversions at open,
then go through the connection process again and choose the text file option
rather than OLE DB or ODBC.

(Word tries several different methods in succession to open its data source
files - I only know some of the things it uses to decide, but if it has for
some reason decided to use ODBC you won't see the delimiter dialog and it
won't recognise ~ as a record delimiter).

Another possibility might be to try to get the data directly from your
database, or export to a format better suited to containing any character
mix (perhaps to a .mdb (Access/Jet) table. Unfortunately XML is not an
option because WOrd can't use it directly as a data source, but you might
for example be able to go XML-Access-Word or some such.

--
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

"Andrew" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have extracted data from my progress database to a text file and want to
merge the data into word. Some of the database fields contain free text,
therefore users have naturally enough used characters such as quotation
marks, commas and carriage returns in these fields. I thought I could get
round this by using | as the field delimiter and ~ as the record delimiter
and, indeed this worked ok, producing fields with the offending characters
read faithfully as text. But now when I try to add more fields using the
same conventions and with characters such as ",CR when I attach the data
source in Word the dialog box where you specify the field and record
delimiters fails to display and the data merges as one glutinous lump!
Am I missing an obvious solution here? Myself and a colleague have checked
and can see no difference between the fields where the offending
characters
work and the ones where they don't.
HELP!!!