[Sonia]

Trying to enter a lot of data in a field but unable to fit in all data, can
this field be made larger?

[Peter Jamieson]

If you are using the built-in facility for entering data in Word XP or
later, Word creates a .mdb (also known as a "Jet" or "ACE" or "Access"
database where each field has type "Text", which imposes a limit of 255
characters per field.

You may be able to alter this if you have Access - see below.

Otherwise, you will probably need to start using another type of data
source that supports fields longer than 255 characters - for example, a
Word document containing a table with one column for each data source
field can do that, but only if the column count does not exceed WWord's
absolute maximum (around 63 columns) and is not too large for practical
editing. If you do that and you have a lot of data that you don't want
to retype, let us know if you need help transferring the data to a new
format.

You /may/ be able to overcome this if you have Access, but
a. you need to proceed carefully
b. you may find that your data source does not behave in quite the
same way when you have altered it. This is because Word creates a .mdb
that it recognises as an "Office Address List" and treats specially.
Even small changes to the structure of the .mdb may mean that Word no
longer recognises the .mdb as an OAL and you may no longer be able to
edit you data from within Word.

That said, the following procedure seems to work here in Office 2007
SP2. I can't be sure that it will work with other versions of Office.

The overview is:
a. make sure no mail merge mail documents that use your data source
are open
b. make a copy of your .mdb. This step is very important.
c. open the .mdb in Access. You should see that there is a table
called Office_Address_List and a query called Office Address List (i.e.
without the underscores).
d. select the table called Office_Address_List and go into the Table
Design view. You should see a list of field names, each with Data Type
set to Text
e. select the field(s) where you want to have longer texts and change
the data type to Memo (I only tried changing one)
f. work your way back out of Access, saving any changes as necessary
and closing the database
g. re-open a mail merge main document that uses the database, or
connect to the database from a new mail merge main document. Go into
edit-recipients and ensure that
- there is /a/ way to edit the recipients from within Word. for
example, in Word 2007, you will probably need to select the database
name in the box on the lower left of the dialog box before the "Edit"
button is enabled.
- you can type all the text you need, in all the columns you need
- Word saves the data correctly, uses it correctly in your merge,
and lets you edit it next time.

If you need any further help on that lot, let us know which versions of
Word and Access you are using. Even without Access, it may be possible
to "fix" the table design using some Word VBA code.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 09/11/2009 11:27, Sonia wrote:
Trying to enter a lot of data in a field but unable to fit in all data, can
this field be made larger?