Re: Using DDE as source in mail merge

Thanks for the speedy response. Agreed - definitely flaky.

However, of the 120 or so % fields in my XL file, approx 20% merge across
correctly - the rest don't. So an autocorrect will cause the 20% to multiply
by 100 and blow up - and as you can see my issue is not about saving a doc to
reuse and merge a couple of cells. I have 251 columns (255 is the XL max.)
across 238 rows with a variety of formats - text, %, $, xx.xxx, etc.

A little more late night trial and error proved that the guilty file could
be made to work by deleting certain rows. I'm still working on identifying
what in those rows caused merge to belch! I suspect it's either a hyperlink,
or a single cell has a weird format set.

Thanks again

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

DDE can be a bit flaky which is presumably why Microsoft changed the default
connection method.

If your work*** is formatted using numbers and the cells formatted as
percentages, then they should be imported into Word as long decimal numbers,
which, as you realise, can be formatted with switches thus { ={ MERGEFIELD
Number } * 100 \# "0%" }. I am unable to force any percentage to come across
intact useing the default connection.

If you enter the fields manually from the keyboard, it takes but a moment
longer to add the switches - and you only have to do it once. The document
can be saved for re-use. You could even assign an unformatted autocorrect
entry of (say) =% to * 100 \# "0%" for speed of entry.


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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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Glibby Gibson wrote:
Word 2003 and Excel 2003 - I have some fields in an XL file that are
percentages - show as 14.5%, 20.8% etc. in XL. No formulae in the
cell - just hard values. When I mail merge to a Word doc some of the
percentages merge correctly - 20.8%, and others don't -
0.1449657838267 etc.

I've used mergefield switches to make the merge work correctly (but
it's pretty slow to add for all the fields I'm merging) and I've seen
a post about switching back to a DDE interface - which is how I'd
like to go.

Here's the rub - when I select the XL file, select DDE and select the
entire spread***, I get a message that Word cannot open the source
file. If I try and open a different XL file under DDE it works fine
and I get the data merge I want - although it's on the wrong XL file!
Is it possible that all my original trial and error work has
corrupted the original XL file and I need to rebuild (hope not, it's
a LONG process) or is there something I'm missing here?
Thanks - sorry for long post.
Glibby



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