Cell formatting in Mail Merge

[Guest]

I have an Excel spreadsheet, showing dates when a succession of different
stages are reached for each client in my conveyancing job. All dates are in
UK format in Excel. However, when I mail merge in Word using this data
source, all dates appear in Word as US format, and any empty cells are
populated with 12:00AM.

Could you please tell me if this is an Excel problem, and what the solution
may be.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Debra Dalgleish posted this to a similar question:

There's an article on the Microsoft web site that might help you:

Answer Box: Numbers don't merge right in Word
http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/assistance/HA011164951033.aspx

And if you prefer the old Mail Merge helper, Word MVP Suzanne Barnhill
has instructions here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~wordfaqs/CustomizingWord2002.htm

about half way down the page.

=======
I often cheat and just use another cell:

=text(a2,"mm/dd/yyyy")

and use this text cell in the mail merge.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for that Dave, it's worked a treat - it changes the US dates to UK
format. Thank god for that! Unfortunately, the empty cells that were 12:00AM
are now showing today's date. I just want them to be empty. Is there a way of
telling it to leave empty cells as empty?

Many thanks for your efforts Dave, I'm half-way there at least!

 

[Dave Peterson]

I'd still use that extra cell:

=if(a1="","",text(a1,"mm/dd/yyyy")