Mail Merge and paragraph formatting

Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is, but if it
was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I would setup
the main document as a two column table with and If...then...Else construct
in each column, the one in the first column returning the Line # if the data
in the field was not blank and the one in the second column returning the
data if it was not blank.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
FWIW, my experiment with Windows 7 and Word 2010 beta had exactly the same
result as my experiment with Vista and Word 2007. However, so far I have
been using data that has no internal hard line breaks (i.e. only laid out
using automatic wrapped, whether it was in Word or Excel. If I put one or
more hard breaks in the Excel text for "Line 1" (say), then the first part
of Line 1 still retains the wrong formatting, but all the other parts of
Line 1 are OK. Which is not quite what I would have expected either.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 09:57, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

The original test would have been on a 32-bit version of Vista (I cannot
confirm that it was SP2 at the moment, but would be very surprised if it
was not) and Word 2007 (also almost certainly SP2 (but I cannot confirm
at the moment)

I have just retested on a machine running Word 2007 SP2 under Windows 7,
with an Excel 2010 data source (while I retained Word, I dumped the rest
of Office when I installed 2010) and using the same field construction I
get the expected result with one minor exception (which I had also
experienced on the other installation)

That is that the result of the first field in the first record appears
as follows (here, I have manually inserted carriage returns and tabs to
show the result

Line 1: On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed
to coordinate with the

overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert
tables, headers,
footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks. When
you create
pictures, charts, or diagrams, they also coordinate with your current
document look

Note that there is an empty "line" between the first and second lines.
There is however no carriage return or new line "character" after the
"the" at the end of the first line and according to the Paragraph Format
dialog, the paragraph is formatted with single line spacing.

If I change the line spacing in the Format Paragraph dialog from Single
to Double and then back to Single again, this mystery space disappears.
If I click undo to undo both instances of the paragraph formatting, the
mystery line does not re-appear.

If instead of using the Paragraph formatting dialog, I place the
selection after the word "the" at the end of the first line and press
delete, the first letter of the first word on the next line is deleted.
Likewise, if I place the selection after the word "the" at the end of
the first line and press the right arrow key, the selection moves the
after the first letter of the first word on the next line.

Apart from this anomaly with the result of the first field of the first
record, all of the other paragraphs are formatted with the required
hanging indent.

Hi Doug,

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

Without further input from the OP, I certainly wouldn't want to spend
any more time on it.

What specifically interested me was that both you and I seem to have set
up or Mail Merge Main Document with identical text and formatting, and
yet we have different results - i.e., "what could account for that?" And
of course there's the question of "what ought to happen?"

I don't think the OP's expectation was unreasonable. But the question
"what do I do if Word simply does not behave the way I expect/want" is
not easily answered. I suppose in the end there has to be a manual
postprocessing step and that someone would have to
a. open the output document
b. identify the paragraphs to be fixed (somehow)
c. apply the fix
d. check the results (how?!)
e. save/print when all is well


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 19:35, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is, but
if it was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I
would setup the main document as a two column table with and
If...then...Else construct in each column, the one in the first column
returning the Line # if the data in the field was not blank and the one
in the second column returning the data if it was not blank.

Hi Peter,

I just recreated my main document so that I could send it to you and
discovered something else of interest - on saving the resulting document
immediately after it was created by executing the merge (i.e. without making
any other adjustments) the mystery line was removed.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my services on
a paid professional basis.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi Doug,

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

Without further input from the OP, I certainly wouldn't want to spend any
more time on it.

What specifically interested me was that both you and I seem to have set
up or Mail Merge Main Document with identical text and formatting, and yet
we have different results - i.e., "what could account for that?" And of
course there's the question of "what ought to happen?"

I don't think the OP's expectation was unreasonable. But the question
"what do I do if Word simply does not behave the way I expect/want" is not
easily answered. I suppose in the end there has to be a manual
postprocessing step and that someone would have to
a. open the output document
b. identify the paragraphs to be fixed (somehow)
c. apply the fix
d. check the results (how?!)
e. save/print when all is well


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 19:35, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is, but
if it was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I
would setup the main document as a two column table with and
If...then...Else construct in each column, the one in the first column
returning the Line # if the data in the field was not blank and the one
in the second column returning the data if it was not blank.

Doug and Peter –

Many thanks for putting in so much work on this problem.

It is a real situation, though it does not matter that much if I can’t get
the result I want. It’s the directory for a small charity in London. It lists
the fixed information for a person, name, address, email, phone,
qualifications, then lists any optional information they have given in none,
one, or more of four possible categories. Each line of the optional
information starts with category description then continues with the supplied
text. The document is more readable with hanging indents. But I can instead
bold the category descriptions.

My machine is an elderly PC running under XP Home + SP3. I’m using Microsoft
Office Professional 2007 Version 12.0 Build 6504 (according to a system info
table).

My data has not got any paragraph marks or other breaks in the text in
Excel. The only paragraph mark is the one in the Mail merge expression.

I tried changing the paragraph formatting from Hanging to First Line indent
and the lines all ended left-justified.

I’m not sure what conclusion to reach. Peter seems to have got the same
result as me, but Doug seems not to. It’s no great problem if I can’t do what
I want. These things start as an interesting puzzle but if you’re not careful
you find yourself spiralling down a bottomless pit of diminishing returns.

Again, many thanks for all the effort you’ve put in, and if you do decide to
look into it further I would certainly be interested to know the results.

Apologies for not replying more promptly. I asked for notification of
replies, or at least I tried to, but I’m not getting them.

Best wishes, Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Hi Peter,

I just recreated my main document so that I could send it to you and
discovered something else of interest - on saving the resulting document
immediately after it was created by executing the merge (i.e. without making
any other adjustments) the mystery line was removed.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my services on
a paid professional basis.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi Doug,

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

Without further input from the OP, I certainly wouldn't want to spend any
more time on it.

What specifically interested me was that both you and I seem to have set
up or Mail Merge Main Document with identical text and formatting, and yet
we have different results - i.e., "what could account for that?" And of
course there's the question of "what ought to happen?"

I don't think the OP's expectation was unreasonable. But the question
"what do I do if Word simply does not behave the way I expect/want" is not
easily answered. I suppose in the end there has to be a manual
postprocessing step and that someone would have to
a. open the output document
b. identify the paragraphs to be fixed (somehow)
c. apply the fix
d. check the results (how?!)
e. save/print when all is well


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 19:35, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is, but
if it was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I
would setup the main document as a two column table with and
If...then...Else construct in each column, the one in the first column
returning the Line # if the data in the field was not blank and the one
in the second column returning the data if it was not blank.


.

I forgot to add that the Hanging Indent worked under Office 2003. This only
came up when I moved to Office 2007. Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Seamus O'Connell" wrote:

Doug and Peter –

Many thanks for putting in so much work on this problem.

It is a real situation, though it does not matter that much if I can’t get
the result I want. It’s the directory for a small charity in London. It lists
the fixed information for a person, name, address, email, phone,
qualifications, then lists any optional information they have given in none,
one, or more of four possible categories. Each line of the optional
information starts with category description then continues with the supplied
text. The document is more readable with hanging indents. But I can instead
bold the category descriptions.

My machine is an elderly PC running under XP Home + SP3. I’m using Microsoft
Office Professional 2007 Version 12.0 Build 6504 (according to a system info
table).

My data has not got any paragraph marks or other breaks in the text in
Excel. The only paragraph mark is the one in the Mail merge expression.

I tried changing the paragraph formatting from Hanging to First Line indent
and the lines all ended left-justified.

I’m not sure what conclusion to reach. Peter seems to have got the same
result as me, but Doug seems not to. It’s no great problem if I can’t do what
I want. These things start as an interesting puzzle but if you’re not careful
you find yourself spiralling down a bottomless pit of diminishing returns.

Again, many thanks for all the effort you’ve put in, and if you do decide to
look into it further I would certainly be interested to know the results.

Apologies for not replying more promptly. I asked for notification of
replies, or at least I tried to, but I’m not getting them.

Best wishes, Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Hi Peter,

I just recreated my main document so that I could send it to you and
discovered something else of interest - on saving the resulting document
immediately after it was created by executing the merge (i.e. without making
any other adjustments) the mystery line was removed.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my services on
a paid professional basis.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi Doug,

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

Without further input from the OP, I certainly wouldn't want to spend any
more time on it.

What specifically interested me was that both you and I seem to have set
up or Mail Merge Main Document with identical text and formatting, and yet
we have different results - i.e., "what could account for that?" And of
course there's the question of "what ought to happen?"

I don't think the OP's expectation was unreasonable. But the question
"what do I do if Word simply does not behave the way I expect/want" is not
easily answered. I suppose in the end there has to be a manual
postprocessing step and that someone would have to
a. open the output document
b. identify the paragraphs to be fixed (somehow)
c. apply the fix
d. check the results (how?!)
e. save/print when all is well


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 19:35, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is, but
if it was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I
would setup the main document as a two column table with and
If...then...Else construct in each column, the one in the first column
returning the Line # if the data in the field was not blank and the one
in the second column returning the data if it was not blank.

Have you actually executed the merge to a new document?

It turned out that Peter was only previewing the results and in this case,
the preview does NOT show you what the result will look like.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my services on
a paid professional basis.

"Seamus O'Connell" wrote in
message ...
I forgot to add that the Hanging Indent worked under Office 2003. This only
came up when I moved to Office 2007. Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Seamus O'Connell" wrote:

Doug and Peter –

Many thanks for putting in so much work on this problem.

It is a real situation, though it does not matter that much if I can’t
get
the result I want. It’s the directory for a small charity in London. It
lists
the fixed information for a person, name, address, email, phone,
qualifications, then lists any optional information they have given in
none,
one, or more of four possible categories. Each line of the optional
information starts with category description then continues with the
supplied
text. The document is more readable with hanging indents. But I can
instead
bold the category descriptions.

My machine is an elderly PC running under XP Home + SP3. I’m using
Microsoft
Office Professional 2007 Version 12.0 Build 6504 (according to a system
info
table).

My data has not got any paragraph marks or other breaks in the text in
Excel. The only paragraph mark is the one in the Mail merge expression.

I tried changing the paragraph formatting from Hanging to First Line
indent
and the lines all ended left-justified.

I’m not sure what conclusion to reach. Peter seems to have got the same
result as me, but Doug seems not to. It’s no great problem if I can’t do
what
I want. These things start as an interesting puzzle but if you’re not
careful
you find yourself spiralling down a bottomless pit of diminishing
returns.

Again, many thanks for all the effort you’ve put in, and if you do decide
to
look into it further I would certainly be interested to know the results.

Apologies for not replying more promptly. I asked for notification of
replies, or at least I tried to, but I’m not getting them.

Best wishes, Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Hi Peter,

I just recreated my main document so that I could send it to you and
discovered something else of interest - on saving the resulting
document
immediately after it was created by executing the merge (i.e. without
making
any other adjustments) the mystery line was removed.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my
services on
a paid professional basis.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi Doug,

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph
data and
apply such formatting.

Without further input from the OP, I certainly wouldn't want to spend
any
more time on it.

What specifically interested me was that both you and I seem to have
set
up or Mail Merge Main Document with identical text and formatting,
and yet
we have different results - i.e., "what could account for that?" And
of
course there's the question of "what ought to happen?"

I don't think the OP's expectation was unreasonable. But the question
"what do I do if Word simply does not behave the way I expect/want"
is not
easily answered. I suppose in the end there has to be a manual
postprocessing step and that someone would have to
a. open the output document
b. identify the paragraphs to be fixed (somehow)
c. apply the fix
d. check the results (how?!)
e. save/print when all is well


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 19:35, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data
and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is,
but
if it was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I
would setup the main document as a two column table with and
If...then...Else construct in each column, the one in the first
column
returning the Line # if the data in the field was not blank and the
one
in the second column returning the data if it was not blank.

And, if you cannot get it to work, the other way to set up your main
document would be as a two column table with the name, address, email,
phone, qualifications headings in the first column, and the merge fields in
the second column then also in that column a series of If...then...Else
constructions to insert each of the other categories and corresponding
If...then...Else constructions in the second column for the data.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my services on
a paid professional basis.

"Seamus O'Connell" wrote in
message ...
I forgot to add that the Hanging Indent worked under Office 2003. This only
came up when I moved to Office 2007. Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Seamus O'Connell" wrote:

Doug and Peter –

Many thanks for putting in so much work on this problem.

It is a real situation, though it does not matter that much if I can’t
get
the result I want. It’s the directory for a small charity in London. It
lists
the fixed information for a person, name, address, email, phone,
qualifications, then lists any optional information they have given in
none,
one, or more of four possible categories. Each line of the optional
information starts with category description then continues with the
supplied
text. The document is more readable with hanging indents. But I can
instead
bold the category descriptions.

My machine is an elderly PC running under XP Home + SP3. I’m using
Microsoft
Office Professional 2007 Version 12.0 Build 6504 (according to a system
info
table).

My data has not got any paragraph marks or other breaks in the text in
Excel. The only paragraph mark is the one in the Mail merge expression.

I tried changing the paragraph formatting from Hanging to First Line
indent
and the lines all ended left-justified.

I’m not sure what conclusion to reach. Peter seems to have got the same
result as me, but Doug seems not to. It’s no great problem if I can’t do
what
I want. These things start as an interesting puzzle but if you’re not
careful
you find yourself spiralling down a bottomless pit of diminishing
returns.

Again, many thanks for all the effort you’ve put in, and if you do decide
to
look into it further I would certainly be interested to know the results.

Apologies for not replying more promptly. I asked for notification of
replies, or at least I tried to, but I’m not getting them.

Best wishes, Seamus
--
Seamus O'Connell


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Hi Peter,

I just recreated my main document so that I could send it to you and
discovered something else of interest - on saving the resulting
document
immediately after it was created by executing the merge (i.e. without
making
any other adjustments) the mystery line was removed.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my
services on
a paid professional basis.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi Doug,

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph
data and
apply such formatting.

Without further input from the OP, I certainly wouldn't want to spend
any
more time on it.

What specifically interested me was that both you and I seem to have
set
up or Mail Merge Main Document with identical text and formatting,
and yet
we have different results - i.e., "what could account for that?" And
of
course there's the question of "what ought to happen?"

I don't think the OP's expectation was unreasonable. But the question
"what do I do if Word simply does not behave the way I expect/want"
is not
easily answered. I suppose in the end there has to be a manual
postprocessing step and that someone would have to
a. open the output document
b. identify the paragraphs to be fixed (somehow)
c. apply the fix
d. check the results (how?!)
e. save/print when all is well


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 22/02/2010 19:35, Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
Hi Peter,

My data had not hard (line or paragraph) breaks in Excel.

I think it's a bit much to expect mail merge to multi-paragraph data
and
apply such formatting.

I am not sure how real the OP's description of his requirement is,
but
if it was just the static text (Line #) that was to be outdented, I
would setup the main document as a two column table with and
If...then...Else construct in each column, the one in the first
column
returning the Line # if the data in the field was not blank and the
one
in the second column returning the data if it was not blank.

Doug -

Gosh. It works. Wish I'd thought of that in the first place.

Many thanks, Seamus

--
Seamus O'Connell


"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Have you actually executed the merge to a new document?

It turned out that Peter was only previewing the results and in this case,
the preview does NOT show you what the result will look like.

--
Hope this helps,

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Please reply only to the newsgroups unless you wish to obtain my services on
a paid professional basis.