Mail merge field display issue in Word
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Severine33130 Posted messages 114 Registration date Status Membre Last intervention -
Hello,
Yesterday I worked on a Word document in which I am doing a mail merge.
I wanted to integrate a date (which is in Excel) in the format "Wednesday, October 1st, 2025" (but I couldn't manage it).
While looking online to do this, I did an operation, and today, ALL MY WORD FILES appear with
{MERGEFIELD COMPANY}
{MERGEFIELD TITLE}
{MERGEFIELD FIRST NAME}
etc....
even the files that were not open at the time of the operation.
However, when I save my file, everything appears normally (with name, first name, address written correctly).
My problem is that I cannot figure out how to make my files appear normally.
Thank you for your help.
Best regards.
Séverine.
2 réponses
Hello,
To modify the field you pressed ALT+F9 and you did not do it the other way to return to the standard view.
The correct format is dddd, d, MMMM, yyyy but it should not display 1st, but rather 1 or 01 depending on d or dd.
https://support.foundant.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404574044567-Change-the-Date-or-Number-Format-of-a-Merge-Field-GLM-SLM
Hello Brucine,
Thank you for your reply.
For the date format, here is what the formula shows me: 45947
However, I entered this: {ME"DATE OS T1"\@"dddd dd MMMM yyyy"}
Honestly, I don't know if there is an error.
Best regards.
Your syntax, if it's the one displayed, is not correct; it should be:
{ MERGEFIELD MaDate \@ "dd dddd MMMM yyyy" }
There is a space on each side of the brackets, on each side of the MaDate field, after the at sign, and between each date switch.
The MaDate field is generally not in quotes, it's just the name of the reference column; I don't know if it supports spaces.
When we modify this field once entered by ALT+F9, we see:
{ MERGEFIELD MaDate \@ "dd dddd/MMMM/yyyy" \* MERGEFORMAT }
In this case, 45947 corresponds to the date format number.
You just need to enter 17/10/2025 in an Excel cell and then format it as a number without decimals to see for yourself.
Your mail merge did not "understand" the format because the syntax is incorrect and returned the corresponding number format for the field.
Hello Brucine,
I think I'm going to give up on all these features I'm trying to implement that are wasting more time than anything else: nothing is working and it's really getting on my nerves.
Right now I have in my Excel cell => Friday, October 17, 2025 (date format with day date month and year),
but in my Word file, it still shows 45947 even though I've typed { MERGEFIELD DATE OS\@ "dd dddd MMMM yyyy" }
I'm doing everything correctly (step by step) and it's not working.
Thank you anyway.
Have a nice day.
Séverine.
Hello,
I always have a doubt about a field name containing a space that could be misinterpreted and, speaking of space, you're always missing one between the field name and the at sign; as for the rest, I don't know.
Depending on what you do with it, the full date format in the Excel file is probably not necessary: the job of the switches is to "translate" to the desired format as long as we start with a date, for example 17/10/2025 or even 25 would suffice.