Re: Mail Merge - Fields missing within "insert merge field" tab

**** UPDATE ****

In case anyone's interested....

After following Peter's advice re saving as .csv and then saving that as an
excel doc, I got the database working. I then sat and put my formatting back
in - nothing drastic, just column widths, some colours on some cells and a
couple of basic formulae. I then found that the problem had occurred again,
namely that when I tried to open the word doc to mail merge, I got the error
message that the DDE connection could not be re-established, so had to open
using the converter method, which meant that the majority of potential merge
fields were missing from the drop down menu.

I went through the whole process again - save as .csv, save that as excel -
and again, got a working database. Put some formatting in and it stopped
working. By a process of elimination, I have discovered that it is the
"wrap" function that seems to cause the problem. I always wrap text in cells,
so that I don't have to have the columns so wide (shrinking to fit makes the
cell contents too small to read) but as soon as I wrap, the DDE stops working.
I have no idea why this is, as it has always worked in the past but it very
definitely does seem to be this. As soon as I take the wrap off, I can merge
to the database without any problems!

This means that I now have to either have very wide columns or shrink to fit,
neither of which is ideal, or I have to remember to take the wrap off before
I try to merge to the database. Not a major problem but an irritation,
nonetheless!!

If anyone else encounters a similar problem, it may be worth just taking off
the wrap and seeing if this resolves the issue for you too!

My thanks again for the assistance.

Jennifer.

--
Message posted via http://www.officekb.com

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