mail merge

[mole999]

more a question really about word and a database, but someone might have a handle on this.

One of the fields is an address field, in the database it is stored name, address, postcode

the address part holds carriage returns

using merge I have been unable to remove the carriage returns, I need the address supplied as a single line,

anyone know of a way in the merge to substitute / remove the carriage return with either a space or comma and space

word 2007 is currently changing the formatting on the second line down, and i don't seem to be able to control that as I think its related to the default paragraph in word, and the merge document is created as a temp file on a server.

I can't do any processing on the document itself beyond merge codes, or change the database format

 

[Macropod]

Hi mole,

Word fields have no string manipulation capabilities to edit their contents - what's in the database is what you get.

If you're using Word's Address Block field for outputting the address, you might find it best not to do so and, instead, insert the individual mergefields into your mailmerge main document. That gives you greater flexibility in how the fields are laid out (it still won't resolve all your issues if there are carriage returns in the source data, though).

As for Word changing the formatting, I'd suggest that's a problem with the Style definition of whatever paragraph Style is applied to the paragraph in which the mergefield is located. Change the Style to one that reflects your needs and the problem should go away.

 

[mole999]

The database is and does record complaints, inquests, all sorts of personal, confidential or sensitive information.

Talking about styles has put a thought in my head, though, although the database front serves a temp word document, you have me now thinking if i can force the template to maintain the style, and store that in the system (guess push comes to shove remove all formatting and at least it would look the same).

I assumed that there might be something in the merge code that I could use, like formatting controls for dates etc

Thanks for the response