Merging Formatted Data

Volker Gaul described a situation that he was having when merging data from an Access database. In the database he uses a mask for the phone number field, such as !(999) 000-0000;;_. When he merges the phone number into the Word document, the formatting symbols (the dashes and parentheses) are not in the merged data, so the phone numbers look strange.

If you have control over the Access database, perhaps the simplest solution is to change how the data is actually stored in your Access data table. When you define your phone number field in Access, you have the opportunity to set up your mask using the Input Mask Wizard. Step 3 of the wizard (Click here to see a related figure.) gives you the opportunity to store the phone number with or without the mask characters (the dashes and parentheses). If you choose to store without them, you'll save space in your data table. If you choose to store with them, then they are available for export to programs such as Word.

If you have no control over the Access database, then making changes to how data is stored is probably not an option for you. In that case you may need to play with the merge fields used by Word. If the data is stored in the Access table as a number, then you can add a mask to the MERGEFIELD field within your Word merge document. Some good tips for how to do that can be found at either of the following locations:

http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MM2002/MM2002.htm
http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm

Remember that using masks in this manner will only work if your phone number is stored in Access as a numeric value. Based on the fact that you are using a mask for the Access field, that tells me that your phone number is stored as text. (Masks are available only for date and text fields in Access, not for numeric fields.) The only recourse in that case is to actually modify how information is stored in the Access table.