Eliminate blank fields in mail merge from Excel to Word

[Sheila]

I'm merging address fields from an Excel 2007 spreadsheet to create labels in
Word 2007. Not all of the labels use all of the address fields, so a blank
line on the resultant address label often occurs. How can I eliminate these
blank lines? I seem to recall that in earlier versions of Excel and/or Word
this either happened automatically or there was a prompt asking if blank
fields should be ignored.

 

[macropod]

Hi Sheila,

Are you using Word's 'AddressBlock' field, or individual fields? AFAIK, the former doesn't allow blank line suppression. For the
latter (in Word):
.. duplicate the mailmerge field to be suppressed (eg «MyData») so that you get «MyData»«MyData»;
.. select both fields and Press Ctrl-F9 to enclose them in a new field, thus { «MyData»«MyData» };
.. fill in between the braces so that you end up with {IF«myData»= "" "" "«MyData»¶
"}, where the '¶' is a paragraph mark or line-feed, depending on which you're using;
.. delete the existing paragraph mark or line-feed after the field;
.. position the cursor anywhere in this field and press F9 to update it;
.. run your mailmerge.