How does it know how to do this....!!!

[phil.latio]

Hi - relative newby to Word mailmerge, and wondering if anyone can
explain the following scenario I have.

Using Word 2000 and Access 2000 (datasource)

Bit of background first!

I've just joined a company where they produce invitations to trade
shows for our customers.
customer data is extracted from the main company sytem's database and
stored in an Access db.

The Customers table includes single Customer Address field so that the
whole address is stored in one field!

Example - '56 Somewhere PlaceGreat SomewhereCounty Somewhere'

When the mailmerge is run from Word it lays out the address correctly
formatted as the following;

56 Somewhere Place
Great Somewhere
County Somewhere

My question is - How does it know how to split down the address string
(one field) into the correct layout for the invitation?

Any pointers would really assist me going forward.

Thanks in advance.

Phil

 

[Doug Robbins]

Are you sure that it always does it. I believe that all that is happening
is that the address is being inserted into the cell of a table (a sheet of
labels maybe) and that the text just happens to be word wrapping at the
appropriate place (sometimes)

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[phil.latio]

Hi Doug

Thanks for the response.

I checked back over 12 weeks of letters (approx 45 per week) and all of
them are formatted correctly! Truly amazing!

BTW, why I'm so baffled about this is I was looking to eliminate the
Word mailmerge and do the whole lot through Access!
However, when I'd originally looked at the Word output I was led to
beleive the address was split into an Addr1, Addr2 etc breakdown.
To my surprise, I found the address was stuffed into one field, and how
was I to parse out the correct elements of the address, from that?
VBA may be the way forward, but how clever to determine how to it is
another thing!

I thought it was a very clever part of the Word mailmerge to 'know' how
to wrap the component address parts into the correct format.
Oh well, back to the drawing board on this one!

Thanks for the pointer, though.

Cheers

Phil