Mail Merge: Text Limitation to 255 Characters? Can I change this?

[Allison Hancock]

I am having problems pulling the entirety of the text in some of the cells in Excel into the Word document while performing a mail merge. I am wondering if there is a limitation to how much text you can pull from Excel into Word, and if I can increase that limitation. It seems like 255 is the maximum number of characters it will pull from Excel.

I have already tried re-copying and pasting the information in the Excel cell.

And I have also tried recreating the entire Excel and Word documents.

Is 255 characters the maximum Mail Merge can handle? Can I change the maximum?

 

[Allison Hancock]

By subset I mean that each record could have more than one group of cells that has more than 255 characters. (I work for an online school and I am sending each instructor the anonymous student feedback for the instructor. Some instructors teach more than one course so each subset has the information for each individual course. I COULD send each instructor one email per course with their feedback but I'd like to have one email go out to each instructor with the comments for ALL of the courses they taught. So, each record has ALL of the courses that instructor taught)
So, if I move the record to the top that has the most characters in the first subset (or first course) than all of the following records pull more than 255 characters for their first course as well. BUT if the second, third and fourth subsets (courses) of the first record do not have more than 255 characters, than all of the following records cut off at 255.
I understand the principle of putting the bigger records at the top, so is my only solution to break up the subsets (courses) into more than one record?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

I understand the principle of putting the bigger records at the top, so is my only solution to break up the subsets (courses) into more than one record?

Maybe, but I'm struggling to envisage your data layout.

 

[Allison Hancock]

The data workbook is a beast. Below is a screen shot, I don't know if it's going to show up correctly or well...if it does then I will explain it in the next post

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

You image didn't appear so I removed it. You can use the HTMLMaker here to post a snapshot of your worksheet:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=8cffdec0ce27e813&id=8CFFDEC0CE27E813%21189

 

[Allison Hancock]

The data workbook is a beast. Basically, each record has all of the information that I would like sent to each instructor. The columns are labeled as such: Course1, 1EC1 (1=course #, EC=Evaluation Comment, 1=comment #), 1EC2, 1EC3, 1EC4, 1EC5....1EC11, Course2, 2EC1, 2EC2, 2EC3, 2EC4, 2EC5...2EC11, Course3, 3EC1, 3EC2, 3EC3.....3EC11, Course4, 4EC1, 4EC2, 4EC3.....4EC11.
So, subset 1 would be Course 1 and 1EC1 to 1EC11.
Subset 2 would be Course 2 and 2EC1 to 2EC11.
And so on...

 

[Allison Hancock]

SO, when I put all of the records in order from highest number of characters in the 1EC1 to 1EC11 (course/subset 1) columns ALL of subset 1 for each record will pull more than 255 characters. But that order doesn't necessarily coincide with subsets 2, 3 and 4. So, then because subsets 2-4 are not in order from highest amount of characters from the top, they still cut off at 255.
Wow, I hope that translates.
I will try the skydrive but it may take me a while.

 

[Allison Hancock]

Is there no other way to set it to read all cells as Memo (over 255 characters) than to put them in order from top to bottom?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

Did you read the link I gave in Post #9?

 

[andrewman]

It is a solution.....Passed strings longer than 255 characters are truncated in Excel

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

It is a solution.....Passed strings longer than 255 characters are truncated in Excel

That article doesn't apply to a Word Mail Merge.