Forum Discussion
Word 2304 mail merge issue
When specifying a data source of a tab file using Word, when it has (don't know exact value) 1,600 columns it handles this fine. When you use over 1,900 word asks for delimiter and also incorrectly complains about column mismatch (too many columns in row 1).
This use to work fine and still works on older versions on MS word but with Word 16 we get this issue.
We have checked delimiters and column counts in Excel, both are fine and same code used to produce test files with 1,600 and 1,900 columns.
9 Replies
AlanM1965 Using the default OLE DB Database files method of connecting the data source to the mail merge main document you should not have a problem attaching a data source with several thousand columns to the mail merge main document when using any of the later versions, including Microsoft 365.
The Insert Merge Field facility in Word is however limited to displaying the first 255 columns and for any columns beyond that, you will need to manually insert the mergefield using CTRL+F9 and typing MERGEFIELD followed by the field\column name.
Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP Hi, thank you for your response but can you please explain why this works in Word version 15 and doesn't work in Word version 16. Tab delimited files are supposed to work, I believe?
AlanM1965 Can you upload a copy of the file so that I can investigate the issue.
