Mail Merge with Excel losing formatting

[Shirley]

Have a mail merge document with the source data in a
spreadsheet. Worked fine in Word 2000 and before. Got a
new PC with XP on it, now when I open the data source, it
seems to ignore all the formatting that has been done to
the data in the spreadsheet. Instead of displaying
$85,000.00, it shows the raw 85000. Did something change
in XP? How do I get it to keep the formatting?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See "Formatting Word fields with switches" on fellow MVP Graham Mayor's
website at

http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm


--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[piddilin]

This may be a layman's fix but here's what I did: PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF I'M WAY OUT OF BOUNDS DOING IT THIS WAY.
Problem: Mail Merge field does not appear in same format as Excel Data Source (e.g. $20,000 in Excel appears without $ symbol (20,000) when merged with Main Document.
Solution: To resolve this behavior, use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) to connect to the Excel worksheet that contains the data that you want to use. For your data to appear in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box with the same formatting that appears in the Excel worksheet:

1. Start Word, and then open a new blank document.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
3. Click to select the Confirm conversion at Open check box, and then click OK.

NOTE: From now on, when you bring an Excel spreadsheet into Word, it will ask you to select to Confirm Data Source. Select this check box if you want to select the converter that Word will use to open a file created in another application, OR clear this check box if you want Word to select the correct converter automatically and open the document. Your data now appears in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box with the same formatting that appears in the Excel worksheet.

 

[Shirley]

Hey - thanks! That's great! Much better than having to
use switches on mail fields!

-----Original Message-----
This may be a layman's fix but here's what I did: PLEASE

LET ME KNOW IF I'M WAY OUT OF BOUNDS DOING IT THIS WAY.

Problem: Mail Merge field does not appear in same format

as Excel Data Source (e.g. $20,000 in Excel appears
without $ symbol (20,000) when merged with Main Document.

Solution: To resolve this behavior, use Dynamic Data

Exchange (DDE) to connect to the Excel worksheet that
contains the data that you want to use. For your data to
appear in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box with the
same formatting that appears in the Excel worksheet:

1. Start Word, and then open a new blank document.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
3. Click to select the Confirm conversion at Open check box, and then click OK.

NOTE: From now on, when you bring an Excel spreadsheet

into Word, it will ask you to select to Confirm Data
Source. Select this check box if you want to select the
converter that Word will use to open a file created in
another application, OR clear this check box if you want
Word to select the correct converter automatically and
open the document. Your data now appears in the Mail Merge
Recipients dialog box with the same formatting that
appears in the Excel worksheet.