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Comment:
I am trying to use an excel spread sheet in mail merge.I want the sheet to be blank so I can use it as a document. When I try to open the sheet it does not encode correctly. What am I doing wrong
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More info please. You are using Word to do a mail merge and want to use an Excel spreadsheet as the data source? What are you trying to correctly encode?
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PERHAPS I AM USING THE WRONG TERM. WHEN I TRY TO BRING UP THE EXCEL SHEET ALL I GET ARE LITTLE SQUARES AND DASHES, I DO NOT SEE THE WORK SHEET. WHAT I WANT TO DO IS DO TIME SHEETS FOR WORK DONE ON FILES IN THE OFFICE AND LET THE STAFF BE ABLE TO JUST PRESS AN ICON THAT IS IN MAIL MERGE RATHER THAN TYPING OUT A FULL WORD. IN OTHER WORDS, THEY WOULD CLICK ON R/F RATHER THAN TYPING OUT "REVIEWED FILE". THE WORDS WOULD COME UP CORRECTLY ON THE DOCUMENT WHEN PRINTED. HOPE THIS DOES NOT CONFUSE YOU TOO MUCH. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.
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So you are using an excel spreadsheet as the primary document and trying to mail merge something into the Excel spreadsheet?
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YES. THAT IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO AIM FOR. HOWEVER, I SAVE A SPREADSHEET TO MY DOCUMENTS. THEN, WHEN I AM IN MAIL MERGE AND ATTEMPT TO OPEN THE SPREADSHEET, ALL I GET ARE LITTLE SQUARES AND DASHES. NO SIGN OF THE SHEET ANYWHERE. I WANT TO USE THE EXCEL SPREADSHEET AS IT IS SO EASY TO TOTAL UP THE FIGURES....
WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM DOING WRONG, OR WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM MISSING?
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Have you tried opening a Word document and inserting the parts of your spreadsheet that you want? I'm not sure you can use an Excel spreadsheet as a source document for a mail merge. You can use an Excel spreadsheet as a source of DATA for a mail merge using a Word document as source. Am I understanding you correctly?
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MAYBE I AM TRYING TO DO SOMETHING THAT SEEMS (AT LEAST TO ME) LIKE A GOOD IDEA, BUT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO. I AM BEGINNING TO THINK THAT WAY. (PERHAPS WE NEED TO SIT DOWN WITH BILL GATES AND HAVE A CHAT!!)
BUT, I HAVE JUST ONE MORE QUESTION. HOW DO I GET DATA FROM AN EXCEL DOCUMENT TO NOT APPEAR AS LITTLE DOTS AND SQUARES WHEN I TRY TO OPEN IT IN MS WORD MAIL MERGE?
P.S. I APPRECIATE THE INSITE YOU ARE GIVING ME.
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Maybe you could give me a step-by-step of how you are getting to the "squares and dashes" stuff. I know what the squares and dashes are: the system is trying to display binary data as character data.
Tell me what you're doing like:
Open word...
Select tools...
Select Mail Merge...
etc...
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OK.
Open Word.
Select tools.
Select letters and mailings.
Mail Merge.
Select letters.
Start from Existing Document.
Select More Files.
Open
My documents.
All Files
Select excel sheet (that I already sent to word)
Open
VOILA!!! BINARY DIGITS AND CODES.
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re: Select excel sheet (that I already sent to word)
What do you mean by "that I already sent to word"?
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I OPENED EXCEL. MADE A SMALL DOT ON THE PAGE SO I COULD SAVE IT.
I THEN SAVED IT TO MY DOCUMENTS. I MADE A MISTAKE IN MY POSTING. I DID NOT SEND IT TO WORD, SORRY ABOUT THAT, BUT SAVED IT TO MY DOCUMENTS.
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OK. You can't do that. You can open a WORD document and use an Excel spreadsheet to supply VALUES to the WORD document but you cannot use an Excel spreadsheet as the source document. You could include some of the cell values in your WORD document. Is that something you'd like to do?
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YES. I BELIEVE SO. I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR HELP. HOW DO I DO THAT, OR WHERE CAN I LOOK TO FIND OUT HOW TO DO THAT?
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When the Mail Merge stuff is going, you have to select a text document as your starting document. It can be either the existing document (like if you've already typed your letter and want to send it to a bunch of people), a text file, another .DOC file, or some other TEXT type of file. Then when you select the recipients you specify the SOURCE of the stuff you're going to put in. Now this can be addresses, fields from databases, data from spreadsheets, whatever if it's in tabular form. Just go to browse. This is where you're asked for a source document. This is where you can select a spreadsheet or database, or whatever. Notice that the wizard window say "recipients". This is the list of people or things you are sending TO, the variables in this case. Now you go to the next screen and it says "now write your letter". Position your cursor where you want to put your variable data (you may have to insert a text field or text box) and select "More items...". Now it shows a wizard screen with all the field names from your source document. Select "Database fields". Select which one or ones you want by double-clicking on a name or hitting "Insert". That's it. Now your document will have data from the data source. You'll get as many pages as there are rows of data source.
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THANKS. I WILL TRY AND DO THAT. I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE AND THE TIME IT TOOK OUT OF YOUR DAY TO HELP ME.
I HAVE NEVER GONE TO A SITE LIKE COMPUTING.NET BEFORE. NO DOUBT, I WILL BE BACK WITH MORE QUESTIONS.
THANKS AGAIN.........
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Why are you back to posting in all caps?
It's obvious from your OP and Response # 9 that you know how to post correctly, so why don't you do it everytime?
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