Hi George:
I wonder if you have the text file set up correctly as a delimited data
source?
Have a look for a help topic similar to the one below. This one is from
Macintosh Word, but the rules are exactly the same in PC Word:
Rules for a tab- or comma-delimited text file as a data source
You can use as a data source any text file that has data fields separated
(or delimited) by tab characters () or commas, and data records separated by
paragraph marks (¶). For example, if you want to create a data source that
contains more than 63 data fields, you can't use the Data Merge Manager to
set up a Microsoft Word table. Instead, you can organize the data as
separate tab- or comma-delimited paragraphs in a Word document. You might
also want to use a delimited text file if you can't directly open a data
source created by your database or spreadsheet program. In this case, you
can export the data to a tab- or comma-delimited ASCII text file.
In addition to the general rules for organizing a data source, see the
following specific rules for setting up a tab- or comma-delimited text file:
€ To separate data fields in the data records, use tab characters () or
commas as field delimiters. Make sure to use the same field delimiter in
both the header record and the data records. It's preferable to use tab
characters, because the contents of the data fields may include commas.
€ To end a data record, press RETURN to insert a paragraph mark (). Make
sure that there are no extra paragraph marks between or following the data
records. Word interprets any empty paragraphs (blank lines) as empty
records.
€ To leave a data field blank for a specific record, insert two tab
characters or two commas to indicate the empty field. However, if the data
field is the last one in the data record, don't insert a second field
delimiter.
€ To ensure that Word doesn't interpret the contents of a data field as a
field delimiter or data record delimiter, enclose a data field in quotation
marks (" ") if it contains any of the following characters:
€ A tab character () or a comma if you're using the same character as a
field delimiter.
€ A manual line break () or a paragraph mark ().
€ A character you specified as the list separator character on the
International pane in System Preferences (Apple menu€ To ensure that Word
prints quotation marks (" ") that appear in the contents of a data field,
type two consecutive pairs of quotation marks (" " " "). When you merge the
data from the data field, Word will print only one pair of quotation marks.
I have looked on 3 different computers with differing versions of word and
different levels of service packs. the first one is word2002 with service
pack 1. On this computer I have no problems. The next has word 2002 with sp3.
At first I had the annoying pop up saying that sql would retrieve the data, I
followed the workaround in the registry to eliminate that popup. But what
still exists is that when I open the main document, if the datasource is in
the form of a .txt file, I can't open it. I converted the .txt file into
excel and when I do it that way it is fine. The probelm is this is alot of
work. How can I continue to use the datasource as a .txt file. BTW I
mentioned I looked at 3 computers, the other has word2003 with sp3 on it.
Please help.
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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
