Mailing issue with date of birth
Solved
D90DX
-
Namourette -
Namourette -
Hello,
I am currently managing an Excel file of over 3000 people and I regularly need to use it for mail merging in Word.
All fields are correctly transmitted during the mail merge except for the "date of birth" column.
Examples: instead of displaying "25/12/1970" in the Word document, I get "25927", "21/04/1994" gives "34945", and I get "33346" with "18/04/1991".
Thank you for your help.
I am currently managing an Excel file of over 3000 people and I regularly need to use it for mail merging in Word.
All fields are correctly transmitted during the mail merge except for the "date of birth" column.
Examples: instead of displaying "25/12/1970" in the Word document, I get "25927", "21/04/1994" gives "34945", and I get "33346" with "18/04/1991".
Thank you for your help.
1 réponse
Hello D90DX,
Word has converted the date into the number of days elapsed since 01/01/1900.
Here are 3 suggestions to recover the dates in your mail merge:
In your Word template document
1. Modify the field code for the date of birth
Press [ALT] [F9] to display the field codes. Complete the date code as follows with the bold switch below (be careful with uppercase letters):
{ MERGEFIELD "your date field" \@ "dd/MM/yyyy" }, press [ALT] [F9] again to hide the codes and run a test.
2. Use the DDE exchange protocol
In the "Office" button or the [File] tab, "Options", "Advanced options" (on the left). In the "General" section at the bottom, check "Confirm file format conversion on open". Re-establish the link with your Excel file.
You will choose the protocol "Microsoft Excel Worksheets via DDE".
This 2nd method requires having only one sheet in the Excel workbook or that it is placed in the 1st position.
In your Excel sheet
3. Convert the dates to text in a new column using a formula like =TEXT(A1,"dd/mm/yyyy"). Then perform a special paste "Values" to keep only the result, and use this field for your mail merge.
Which solution are you going to choose?
C-Claire
Word has converted the date into the number of days elapsed since 01/01/1900.
Here are 3 suggestions to recover the dates in your mail merge:
In your Word template document
1. Modify the field code for the date of birth
Press [ALT] [F9] to display the field codes. Complete the date code as follows with the bold switch below (be careful with uppercase letters):
{ MERGEFIELD "your date field" \@ "dd/MM/yyyy" }, press [ALT] [F9] again to hide the codes and run a test.
2. Use the DDE exchange protocol
In the "Office" button or the [File] tab, "Options", "Advanced options" (on the left). In the "General" section at the bottom, check "Confirm file format conversion on open". Re-establish the link with your Excel file.
You will choose the protocol "Microsoft Excel Worksheets via DDE".
This 2nd method requires having only one sheet in the Excel workbook or that it is placed in the 1st position.
In your Excel sheet
3. Convert the dates to text in a new column using a formula like =TEXT(A1,"dd/mm/yyyy"). Then perform a special paste "Values" to keep only the result, and use this field for your mail merge.
Which solution are you going to choose?
C-Claire
"I still would have liked to know what was wrong"
me too!
But I’m glad you found a 4th solution ;-)
C-Claire
Thank you
I chose the 4th option to convert the dates to text in the Excel file
thank you it works
Thank you so much! It was the Word settings that were not suitable.
The step-by-step nature of your explanation is extremely helpful, thank you.
Have a great day!